Among the worthless stories on NBC tonight was a note about the failure (again) of the system that is to provide scores and results to the print media pool at the Olympics. We'll skip the question of where the bloggers are for the moment, but a quick look at the official website of the ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games shows RSS could have gone a long way to easing the problems. Wouldn't it be great to have a feed for each of the sports areas that are already on the schedule and result pages.
What should have happened is that there should have been an RSS system in place to offer results feeds to the print press and the world alike. Viewers at home could skip the repetitious hours of watching rowing crews navigate straight down the lane, or bypass the unbelievably bad coverage of the Russian men's gymnastics team (which only showed their mistakes) and could instead get what they are interested in. Oh, yes, we would have missed the description on CNBC about the server being a sink holding the scores and the drain is not big enough to get them out to the print media.
This also brings up the question... where are the bloggers? The Olympics would have been a great opportunity for bloggers. It would have been a big mistake to repeat the convention attempt to make bloggers into regular parts of the press, but it would be great to have a volleyball blogger, equestrian blogger, etc. Get somebody good in each area (or better yet several people) and send them to cover the events and the story behind the events. Have some bloggers live in olympic village.... the possibilities are endless. We have eighteen months until the winter Olympics in Torino. Maybe the recently freed from daily jobs, Dave Winer, can organize blogging of the Olympics.
5 Comments
Blogging the Olympics
I will be blogging at the Games - from Thursday when the track and field events start.
It would be great if there were media accrediation especially for bloggers, but even for print media it is very competitive to get full accrediation - I'll be working for print publications too, and via the British Olympic Association, I would have had to apply two years ago!
I'm hoping for wireless ADSL in the city centre media centre though it looks like I won't be allowed access to the main stadium.
In reality most web masters don't even know what RSS is, never mind some monolithic media operation who's main interest is TV.
Now for something weird - the BBC are a rights holder for TV and online content but only for Britain so they have suspended all their streaaming media content that can be obtained outside the country - even music stations which has nothing to do with the Games.
Tim Watt
http://www.racewalkingrecord.com/blog
Olympian Blogger
I agree feeds of event results would be fantastic. I did find a blogger from the US Olympic swim team: Scott Goldblatt. I mentioned it on my blog: http://darthpedro.blogspot.com/2004/08/misc-ever-wonder-what-it-felt-like-to.html.
NBC and past Olympics
Since I helped a person out who maintained a web site on the sport of Dressage (Equestrian) I know that in the past NBC would not let ANY web sites post information about Olympic events. She had press credentials but till it was broadcast on NBC forget it. She could have been sued heavily.
Not sure if that is what kept bloggers away, but am sure the suits would have come out big time if they did.
R Morton
awful
Can anyone even decipher that awful results page on athens2004.com anyway? My god, what does it all mean?
Olympian blogger
tit bits from an olympians life would make interesting reading
Annie