Olympics programming is off to an incredible start.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Friday night’s opening ceremony attracted 34.2 million people, while 24.1 million viewers tuned in to see Michael Phelps capture his first gold medal of the games on his way to an Olympic record of eight gold medals.

But the Journal also mentioned that NBColympics.com saw 4.8 million viewers stream 3.1 million videos in a showing that has eclipsed any previous Olympics and has seen an extreme shift in the way most studios think people watch television.

For years, studios were concerned that the Web would ruin ratings and if they embraced it too much, they would undoubtedly see revenue drop as more people would choose to watch television illegally online and fail to watch where the studios could make some money.

But as the Journal points out, 90 percent of all viewers have watched the Olympics on television alone, while 10 percent have watched the games both online and on television, and a mere 0.2 percent have watched them online only.

“The streaming will not diminish the ratings,” Neal Pilson, a sports-media consultant who advised the International Olympic Committee in negotiations for broadcast rights, told the Journal. “It encourages viewers and provides them with information. There will be no dilution or fragmentation of the national audience.”

Realizing that, why has this cult of ignorance become such an integral part of the studios’ decision-making?  The Web isn’t something to be feared, these studios should embrace it as the next frontier in their dominance over the entertainment industry.  And as the Olympics have shown quite well, the Internet won’t make them lose ratings and could actually see some increased revenue if the online versions are monetized properly.

But I digress.  The fact of the matter is that both Hulu and now, the Olympics, have shown that putting programming online is not only a major benefit to all parties involved, but has practically become a necessity.  The real value of placing programming online can go much further than this.  Why not simulcast shows both on TV and online?  By doing so, studios can prove to advertisers that there is really no loss in ratings and they can be reassured that the revenue potential would be greater if they properly monetize the online component.

Some Olympics programming is 12 hours behind the actual time the games are played and all the while, people are more than willing to watch them on TV even though the results are readily available online.  And if the Web isn’t ruining the ratings of that kind of programming, can you imagine what the benefits would be if studios finally embraced simulcasts to the Web?

The idea has been bandied about quite a bit over the past few years, but with the success of the Olympics programming, there leaves little doubt that television will not die out to the Web and the Web won’t lose out to television.  And if the studios believe in that premise and endorse it, we’ll all win.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:NBC Extends Olympic Downloads to Vista Media CenterMicrosoft, NBC Join for Olympics Coverage OnlineBlogs are Going to the OlympicsNBC Chooses TVTonic to Provide Downloadable Olympics CoverageContemplating Microsoft Silverlight’s Post-Olympic Fortunes (Poll)25 Sites to Experience the Beijing Summer OlympicsOnce Olympics are Over, NBC Plans Stateside Simulcasts Of NFL Games

Socialmedian, a social news site that we’ve tracked the progress of over the past few months, is now open to everyone.

While a lot of the bases have been covered in our previous coverage, give Socialmedian credit for a nicely paced launch and responsiveness to its alpha users. Today’s public launch includes 350 “user-generated features” as founder Jason Goldberg likes to call them, and the site already has more than 1,000 daily active users – not too shabby considering that until now the service has been invite-only in the hyper-competitive social news space.

The ongoing enhancements and relatively active community were very visible in a tour of the site that Goldberg gave me yesterday. A lot of the ideas behind the service are very familiar if you use products like Digg, Friendfeed, and Google Reader.

You can follow different topical news groups – which are a collection of activities from people interested in the same topic (called News Networks) - or subscribe to updates from other users (called Newsmakers). On your homepage, you can then filter between the activities in your News Networks and the activities among the Newsmakers you’re tracking. Activities tracked include “Clipping” a story (akin to Digg with bookmarklet and all) or commenting on something on Socialmedian.

Looking beyond those features – which on the surface seem like a hybrid of Digg and Friendfeed – is where Socialmedian potentially gets very interesting for news junkies, and it comes in the form of providing feedback to the service. You can vote on each story’s relevance, rank topics in the order of importance to you, and upgrade the frequency at which you’d like to see stories from specific sources. So, hypothetically, if you want to customize Socialmedian to show you more stories about social networking, from Mashable, you can do just that

Beyond these features are where I draw the analogy to Google Reader. The “sharing” options associated with each item on Socialmedian allow you to either email it, Tweet it, or perhaps most interestingly – share it with one of your News Networks. Additionally, you can send a “Snip” (akin to a Note in Google Reader) to your networks.

If that’s not exhaustive enough, Socialmedian also acts as a profile aggregator, using the Google Social Graph API to pull in your profiles from various networks. While right now, this only leads to your profile displaying links, eventually it will turn Socialmedian profiles into yet another lifestreaming aggregator, but with a focus squarely on news according to Goldberg.

In addition to opening up its door to everyone, Socialmedian – which to-date has consisted of Goldberg and a team of programmers in India - is also for the first time disclosing its list of investors. Among the high profile people and organizations backing the company to the tune of $600,000 so far are WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive and former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.

Clearly, Socialmedian has been paying attention to a lot of the trends in social news and aggregation in readying its public launch. It’s an impressive effort, but if there is one big drawback, it’s that the site does require a big investment from the user. Versus sites like Digg where you can passively browse the top content in your preferred high-level categories, to really get the most out of Socialmedian, you need to be active in the form of following other users, joining different News Networks, and continually using the feedback loops that the service provides. On the other hand, that investment might be well worth it for those that are drowning in information overload.

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Source:Mashable!

UK residents have lived under the watchful eye of cameras for a while now, but still Google’s Street View initiative, an effort to photograph roadways and any structures adjacent to the tarmac, both east and west of the Atlantic, was required to undergo examination by the Information Commissioner after hearing from worried citizen rights watchdogs at Privacy International. Today it is said that the IC is officially satisfied with measures promised by Google to protect privacy and safety (blurring of faces of passersby, vehicular license plates, and image removal), and the company has been allowed to proceed as planned.

According to BBC News, the issue of privacy pertaining to roadway and streetside photography was first raised as a relatively high-profile concern earlier this month, when Google announced its intention to venture down lanes in a “few European countries.” The go-ahead given to Google ensures that it won’t be very long before the UK receives the same treatment many American cities have already.

The only resistance to Google Street View to be publicly reported in recent months, which in fact led to the complete removal of coverage for a specific area, was when the Minnesota community of North Oaks, a private jurisdiction, requested that it be removed when it was decided that Google had not gained the authorization to document it. Google complied.

Of course, any comparison with Google’s efforts and those of the UK government to surveil society, as I made a point to do in the introduction, must include mention that one project is privately managed while the other is government-led.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Look Out: Six New Cities Added to Google Street ViewMashups Can Be Creepy Too: Street View Now in Google Maps APITrulia Adds Google StreetView to Home ListingsGoogle Goes Vertical With Street View In NYCTrulia Ad Network: Keeping More Cash from Real Estate SearchHouston, This is Google Street ViewDotHomes: See Results from the Streets and the Skies

Source:Mashable!

If you’ve been hearing about NBC’s efforts to deliver on-the-go video content from the Olympic Games next month, and would like to watch downloads through a Windows Vista Media Center machine, you’re in luck. NBC is now enabling its Olympics On the Go service for that very purpose.

The broadcaster previously announced a partnership with Wavexpress, the name behind TVTonic, in late June. NBC chose the service to provide downloadable media from the summer games for viewing on PCs in automated, DVR-like fashion. Now the two companies are making it possible to extend the on-demand experience further by enabling Vista Media Center users the ability to watch such content - whether on the desktop or from the comfort of a home entertainment center.

NBC is said to be providing “popular events” for download, such as: beach volleyball, swimming, gymnastics, basketball, etc. Video quality is purported to be “up-to-HD.”

If you’re not interested in arranging your schedule to make time for live video streams from the NBC Olympics page in August — Beijing time may be difficult for a U.S.-based audience to adapt to — but wish to keep abreast of goings on in and around the city in a timely way, NBC’s arrangement with Wavexpress and its IPTV-like TVTonic development is something to consider.

It is rather unfortunate, however, that TVTonic is offered exclusively as a Windows Vista Media Center option. This will presumably keep many viewers in the Web browser to watch the games.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:TVTonic Unlocks Quicktime Videos for VistaTVTonic Adds Next New Networks Content for Downloadable Video FeedsTVTonic Launches Auto-Sync Videos On DemandThe Weather Channel Continues to Expand its Reach, on TVTonicNBC Chooses TVTonic to Provide Downloadable Olympics CoverageNext New Networks Expands Distribution to YouTube, Joost & MoreWindows Media Center Gets Third-Party Last.fm Support

NBC has announced today their plan for exclusive and extensive online video and mobile coverage for the 2008 Bejing Olympics. Back in November, SAI reported on the total number of hours of online video that NBC would provide, 2,200 live hours and over 3,000 total hours of video.  NBC is also partnering with Microsoft on their Silverlight technology and the player that NBC describes should be nothing short of amazing. News will appear on MSN and will combine some of the video footage as well.

NBC’s mobile lineup looks pretty slick as well. The mobile features are at the end of the list below. I am guessing that all of the content will be available in the U.S. only.

NBC is targeting three of the richest online advertising verticals: casual gaming, online video and mobile. Let’s just hope that NBC can handle the traffic and the loads - the Olympic coverage could prove a good test for all online video content creators.

Here are the other NBCOlympics.com features announced today:

VIDEO: NBCOlympics.com will provide approximately 2,200 hours of live streaming broadband coverage of Olympic competition where users can choose from up to 20 concurrent streams encompassing 25 Olympic sports.  In addition, the site will offer more than 3,000 hours of on-demand access to full-event replays and extensive highlights, including daily recaps of key events, best-of montages, commentator analysis and athlete-specific clips. (By comparison, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, NBC streamed two hours of live footage.)

The video player’s enhanced mode, powered by Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, will offer picture-in-picture, quad-screen functionality, a larger viewing area and an improved user experience. 

REAL-TIME RESULTS: For all Olympic sports, NBCOlympics.com will present the most comprehensive results anywhere online, provide LIVE results as events are happening and offer statistical summaries, tournament draws and group standings.

PERSONALIZED TELEVISION AND ONLINE VIEWER’S GUIDE: This section, traditionally one of the most trafficked portions of the site during the Games, will be even more important to help navigate the expanded Olympic coverage across all the NBC Universal broadcast and digital platforms.  NBCOlympics.com’s complete schedule for the NBCU broadcast and online coverage reflects the most up-to-date programming information as the television and online schedules are modified throughout the Games. Additionally, site visitors who enter their zip code will receive localized listings that reflect the exact programming available from their local NBC affiliate, including live streaming listings and digital affiliate channel locations for high-definition viewing on NBC Universal cable stations.  Viewers will be able to sort the listings by sport, network, day and time, as well as search by keywords such as athlete, team or country. 

EXPERTISE AND ANALYSIS: NBC’s Olympic commentators will provide video reviews and previews of competition, as well as insight into specific events, rules and athletes competing in the Games. In addition, NBCOlympics.com producers and writers, including Alan Abrahamson, widely considered the foremost Olympic writer, will be breaking news as well as writing columns, features and analysis. The Associated Press will serve as the primary source for recaps and previews of all the Olympic competition. 

MEDAL TRACKER: An in-depth page presenting real-time medal standings, plus related content such as medal ceremonies, past medal standings searchable by country and sport, as well as links from the medal tracker to recaps and highlights of competition. 

TEAM USA: Thorough coverage of the American athletes throughout the Beijing Games.  Content includes results and medals, video introductions and daily events to watch.

ATHLETE PROFILES: NBCOlympics.com will present bios for all 10,500 athletes competing in Beijing, with unmatched depth of information and content around the American competitors, including Q&As, photo galleries, video clips, results and more.

COUNTRY PROFILES: Snapshots of all 205 participating nations include general data (e.g. population, location), plus Olympic histories and 2008 Olympic outlooks.

PHOTOS: NBCOlympics.com will use screen grabs from NBC Sports broadcasts as well as a full library of Getty and Associated Press images to offer multiple galleries and narrative slideshows across all Olympic sports.

DESTINATION BEIJING: A section dedicated to the host city and nation, featuring video features, photo galleries, written features, blogs and more, for users who want to learn more about the culture of China and the Olympic host city, Beijing.

INSIDE THIS SPORT: This is a feature that will give users everything they need to know about a specific sport including competition formats, scoring systems, rules, glossaries, historic timelines and venues.

BLOGS: More than a dozen Olympians are contributing personally shot, home-video style content to NBCOlympics.com as part of an "Olympic Insider" feature that offers insight into the athletes’ personalities and the sports they play. Installments include tours of residences, behind-the-scenes at training sessions, out-of-competition team outings and more. The "Olympic Insider" can be explored at www.nbcolympics.com/olympicinsider/index.html.

WIDGETS: NBCOlympics.com widgets allow users to stay up to date on the Beijing Olympics without leaving their personal homepages. Widgets include: top news, video & photos, athletes to watch, TV and online listings, medal trackers, results, schedules and local coverage.

TELEMUNDO: Telemundo.NBCOlympics.com offers Spanish-speaking viewers a destination for all things Olympics. The largest Spanish offering to date for NBC Olympics, the Telemundo section is a near clone of the English-language site featuring comprehensive coverage (news, video, photos) on key sports including medals, results, athletes and countries.

GAMES:

PRIMETIME COMPANION: A special application to enhance the primetime broadcast, offering video features, text and photos on competition airing in primetime highlighted by polling, chatting, trivia and more. This application will also offer the "Primetime Challenge," a two-screen gaming application in which Olympic fans can play along as they watch NBC’s primetime broadcast.  Users can compete for points in real-time, while playing against their friends and other fans, by predicting the outcome of live events, answering Olympic trivia and polls, playing Olympic-themed mini-games, and chatting with their friends about that night’s competition.  The "Primetime Challenge" will be available for all 17 nights of NBC’s primetime coverage.

OLYMPIC QUICK PICK FANTASY GAME: The Olympic Quick Pick fantasy game will allow fantasy players and Olympic enthusiasts the opportunity to win prizes for participating while cheering on Olympic athletes. Visitors of NBCOlympics.com will be assigned five random athletes competing for a medal each day. Based on how those athletes finish in their medal events, users will earn fantasy points.  Those that accumulate the most fantasy points both daily and over the course of the entire Olympics will win prizes.

OLYMPIC FLASH GAMES: Fans of diving, weightlifting, and archery can compete online in games designed to mimic Olympic competition.

OLYMPIC TRIVIA GAMES: Olympic fans will also be able to test their knowledge with NBCOlympics.com trivia games.  Players will be able to compete against other Olympics fans, as well as challenge friends to beat their scores.

OLYMPIC ZONE: A total of 227 of the 232 (97%) NBC affiliated websites (including all top 100 markets) are participating in the 2008 Olympic Zone offering. Olympic Zone presents localized coverage of the Beijing Olympics directly from a user’s hometown NBC station. Track local athletes, watch video, slideshows and read blogs. Expanded features in 2008 include:
· Localized national video available via Olympic Zone Advanced Olympic Zone integration into NBCOlympics.com (more modules, contextual items such as local athlete tracker)
· Expanded localized content including national video fed into Olympic Zone
· Improved local athlete trackers with featured local athletes on the national site
· Widgets for placement on station and partner websites
· Local email alerts

NBC OLYMPICS MOBILE:

NBC Olympics Mobile presents the most ambitious major sporting event coverage ever delivered on mobile, providing Olympic fans with the best in news and video coverage – how they want it, wherever they want it.  From breaking news to text and video alerts to live mobile TV broadcasts, NBC Olympics Mobile will be the mobile destination for Olympic fans.

MOBILE WEB: The NBC Olympics Mobile Web site will deliver the most comprehensive coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games available for mobile users.  The NBC Olympics Mobile Web site currently includes live news, highlights and feature video, Team USA profiles, slideshow galleries, voting polls, alerts sign-up, and much more.  And starting August 8, mobile users will be able to view live medal counts, detailed results & schedules, customizable TV & online listings, and all the top news and video from Beijing.

Users can access the NBC Olympics Mobile web site by going to http://mobile.nbcolympics.com on their mobile device’s Internet browser or by texting "OLYMPICS" to 51515. 

ALERTS: NBC Olympics Mobile also provides alerts for every Olympic fan.  Text and e-mail alerts are available for breaking news, top headlines for all Olympic sports, medal results, event previews, athlete alerts, and TV/live streaming schedule reminders.  NBC Olympics Mobile will also provide free photo & video highlight alerts for top Olympic sports. 

MOBILE VIDEO: NBC Olympics Mobile Video will provide highlights, daily news, and exclusive feature videos on-demand to mobile video users.  Mobile video is available on the NBC Olympics Mobile Web site and on-deck with select mobile providers.

MOBILE TV: NBC Olympics Mobile will launch NBC Olympics 2Go, an all-new 24/7 mobile TV channel featuring the best of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.  NBC Olympics 2Go will include complete event coverage from NBC, USA, MSNBC, and CNBC programming.  With NBC Olympics 2Go, users will be able to featured and live event coverage while they are on-the-go! 

For more information on NBC Olympics Mobile offerings, visit http://www.nbcolympics.com/mobile

NBC OLYMPICS ON THE GO: This free download-and-play service will allow users to watch NBC’s Olympics coverage at home or on the go.  Once a viewer chooses the sports they want to watch, high quality video of the events will automatically download, as they become available, to Windows Media Center on their PCs or laptops running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate.  With "NBC Olympics On The Go," powered by Wavexpress’ TVTonic, users will then be able to watch long-form full event coverage in up-to-HD quality whether they’re online or offline.  Viewers looking for highlights of the top action from Beijing will be able to download those videos through the "NBC Direct" service.
In addition, users may also be able to download content to handheld devices via Amazon.com and Zune.
 
NBC OLYMPICS VIDEO ON DEMAND: Viewers will be able to access robust NBC Olympics video content on-demand from their home, both prior to and during the Games, through their cable, satellite, or telco television provider.  Olympic fans will be able to gear up for Beijing with NBC Olympics pre-games content, with recaps from Athens, previews of Beijing, and profiles of Team USA.  And during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, NBC Olympics will provide daily highlights and long-form coverage of the best action from Beijing — including exclusive HD features.  NBC Olympics Video On Demand content will be available on select cable & satellite operators.  Viewers must check with local providers for availability.

NBC OLYMPICS INTERACTIVE TV APPLICATIONS: Olympic fans can access exclusive NBCOlympics.com content through their television with NBC Olympics Interactive TV applications.  Viewers can get all the best NBC Olympics coverage during the Games:  top news stories, updated medal counts, detailed NBC Olympics TV listings, profiles of Team USA, and more.  NBC Olympics Interactive TV applications will be available on select cable and satellite operators.  Viewers must check with local providers for availability.

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American Gladiators has been a big hit for NBC this season. When the show kicked off earlier this year, the episodes were 90 minutes to two hours in length and each event in the competition was shown in full. As the season moved on, the show moved into a one-hour slot and with the change, came a change in the way the show is broadcast.

With the new episodes (including last night’s), some of the events are not shown in full. For those events that are shown only in a short clip, the announcers point American Gladiator viewers to the Web to watch the full event. I am trying to get some numbers from NBC on how well this strategy is working and will report back once I get the detailed stats. While I assume some viewers are sitting at their computers while watching and will load the Web site immediately, I can’t picture many people getting off the couch or recliner to watch Python beat someone in the Terminator. By the time the show is over, the draw to online dips even further.

The more important question is, where are the videos? I loaded americangladiators.com and found what appears to be about 20% new version and 80% old version. There are some promo videos including a promo for an episode that aired weeks ago. The other content, from cast bios to images and games, is all from the old series 10+ years ago.

The new content is all housed on NBC’s Web site including full episodes. What I don’t see anywhere is the specific events that were cutoff on the live TV version. Do I really need to sit through the full hour if I only want to see what happened in the Joust?

I think NBC is making a big mistake by not updating the American Gladiators main .com site. While it’s important to display content from the old version, the new version is where it’s at now. In fact, on the americangladiators.com site, there’s one tiny link over to NBC. At least redirect the domain. How much traffic, ad impressions and even more importantly, high paying video ad impressions is NBC losing because of this poor online strategy?

(in case you are interested, my favorites are Jet, Justice and Crush, do you have a favorite?)

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