With the Beijing Olympics finished and the attention span of our nation firmly refocused on domestic politics, we're now afforded time to sit back and analyze how NBC harnessed the power of "new media" to turn the Beijing Olympics into the juggernaut that it became.
NBC's three-pronged blitz worked miraculously. Not only did I spend my evenings watching gold-medal events live as they happened (a product of NBC bargaining), I also found myself continually drawn to the website to re-live the glory of the American successes. Bob Costas, Meredith Vieira and Brian Williams constantly told me it would be a good idea. If I had a better phone, I would probably have tuned in to see the freestyle limbo while I was shopping for underpants.
My mother says she finds herself suddenly tuning to NBC now even after the games. How did a network that was so seemingly out of touch with new media turn it all around and hook us?
NBC recognized that media convergence would play a dominant role in the games and successfully managed to work the cell-phone and Internet hand in hand with the television broadcast to keep people plugged in 24-7. They understood how we now consume: all the time.
NBC has begun to understand where the technological revolution is taking people. This can only be a positive for the networks that are scrambling to understand the way people watch and adapt to people being drawn to the Internet. NBC's embrace of technology has even begun to produce fruits in the form of basic ways to track how people viewed the Olympics on mobile phones. If the networks finally crack the code and begin to understand the patterns of how the plugged in operate, the world suddenly becomes their oyster. The endgame? Advertising standards for the Internet and mobile media suddenly become viable. NBC has struck pay dirt.
NBC's three-pronged blitz worked miraculously. Not only did I spend my evenings watching gold-medal events live as they happened (a product of NBC bargaining), I also found myself continually drawn to the website to re-live the glory of the American successes. Bob Costas, Meredith Vieira and Brian Williams constantly told me it would be a good idea. If I had a better phone, I would probably have tuned in to see the freestyle limbo while I was shopping for underpants.
My mother says she finds herself suddenly tuning to NBC now even after the games. How did a network that was so seemingly out of touch with new media turn it all around and hook us?
NBC recognized that media convergence would play a dominant role in the games and successfully managed to work the cell-phone and Internet hand in hand with the television broadcast to keep people plugged in 24-7. They understood how we now consume: all the time.
NBC has begun to understand where the technological revolution is taking people. This can only be a positive for the networks that are scrambling to understand the way people watch and adapt to people being drawn to the Internet. NBC's embrace of technology has even begun to produce fruits in the form of basic ways to track how people viewed the Olympics on mobile phones. If the networks finally crack the code and begin to understand the patterns of how the plugged in operate, the world suddenly becomes their oyster. The endgame? Advertising standards for the Internet and mobile media suddenly become viable. NBC has struck pay dirt.
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