The Summer Olympics are nearly here. Beginning August 8th, the world will be watching as athletes compete for the gold in Beijing. Of course, many people will be watching the coverage on TV or the web, but others will keeping up-to-date on the latest news via their mobile phone. To take advantage of the demand for mobile coverage of this event, Yahoo has recently launched a site devoted exclusively to the 2008 Beijing Games. And they’re not the only ones catering to the ever-growing mobile audience.
Yahoo’s Mobile Olympics Site
From Yahoo’s main mobile web site, m.yahoo.com, there’s a new link that’s been added to the top of the list directly underneath Mail and Messenger. The link reads “2008 Olympics Coverage.”
From this link, you’re taken to Yahoo’s newly launched mobile Olympics site. Here, you’ll find Beijing time and weather at the top, and a countdown timer to games underneath. The timer counts down the days, hours, and minutes until the start of the games on August 8th. Once the games begin, that timer will likely be replaced with other content.
Underneath the timer, there’s a section devoted to news and photos, which deliver the top headlines with links to read the full stories.
Mobile Reporters
On the flip side, Mobile IM and VOIP company, Fring, is looking for mobile Olympics news reporters. They’re hoping to take advantage of the demand for Olympics news coverage by using the event to gain traction and exposure for their service.
On a recent blog entry, the company announced that they would provide 3.5G mobile phones, with camera, SIM card, and unlimited data plans to anyone planning to attend the games and interested in micro-blogging the events. “FringCommentators,” as they’re being called, will then send in quick updates and photos to their blog. The announcement doesn’t say, but the likely destination for these micro-blog posts will be this site, a China fring blog, currently only showing one post which reads “under construction.”
More Ways To Get Mobile Olympics News
Of course, the official site for news (in the U.S.), NBCOlympics, will be a lot of people’s first choice for mobile Olympics news. They’re offering a mobilized version of their site and news via text (text OLYMPMICS to 51515).They’re also offering mobile alerts, mobile video, and mobile TV news for select mobile devices.
Mobile widget makers are also getting ready for the Games. Plusmo, for example, has a Beijing widget available here which can be added to your phone to deliver the latest headlines.
For video, MobiTV customers can subscribe to a mobilized channel showing NBC Sports coverage, which come August, will be all Olympics news to be sure.
To get the latest headlines, Google Mobile’s News feature lets you customize your page of news, so it’s very easy to create a personalized page displaying only the news containing the keyword you entered – like “Olympics” or “Beijing,” for example.
Then there is Reuters mobile news service which is available at http://mobile.reuters.com or via text (text NEWS to 25669). They even provide mobile RSS feeds, including this one for sports news.
ABC News looks like they might have some good mobile offerings, too, but I couldn’t explore them thanks to a web site error:
Will you be watching the Summer Games on your mobile phone? If so, how? Share the services you will use in the comments.
