This year, there's a ton of media companies banking on the Olympics being the watershed moment for mobile content, and even mobile advertising. And, when you think about it, the Olympics has a perfect recipe for making this come true: there's a gigantic, worldwide audience full of people who can at times be ravenous for updates no matter where they are. It appears plenty of companies are acknowledging that and launching options for people who want to keep up with the games from their mobile phone. Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO) has developed a specific mobile page devoted to the event; NBC, the official Olympic broadcaster in the U.S., has a number of options; and a number of smaller scale companies have launched everything from mobile TV to microblogging sites just in time for the Aug. 8 event, reports ReadWriteWeb.
Here are some of the options:
Yahoo: From m.yahoo.com, Yahoo is advertising a new feature called "2008 Olympics Coverage." The link leads you to an Olympics-focused landing page that for now features Beijing time and weather and a countdown clock to the start of the games. Once the games begin, other content will be featured there.
Microbloggers: A company called Fring said it will provide mobile phones with a camera, a SIM card and unlimited data plan to anyone planning to attend the games and interested in micro-blogging. "FringCommentators," as they're being called, will send quick updates and photos to a blog.
NBC: The official news site for the U.S. is NBC so the network will be offering a mobilized version of its Web site, and text alerts by texting OLYMPICS to 51515. They'll also be doing mobile video and mobile TV news for select mobile devices.
Widgets: ReadWriteWeb said several mobile widget makers are also making Olympic-specific widgets. Plusmo has built a Beijing widget, which can be added to your phone to deliver the latest headlines. I would also put Google (NSDQ: GOOG) under this category. Its Google Mobile News feature lets you customize your page of news, so you can add a widget for something like Olympics.
Video And Mobile Advertising: MobiTV will offer customers a mobilized channel showing NBC Sports coverage. At CTIA, George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal's chief digital officer, said NBC will incorporate mobile advertising as part of the ad sales for the Olympics, and will create live programming and video highlights on MediaFLO. He said the event has the chance to be a big game changer. "It will be the single largest digital media event ever, whether it's a watershed moment that will drive the next generation of content."
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