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April 19 2012
February 20 2012
“All that is required is an issue about which others are passionate and feel unheard”
Here’s a must-read for anyone interested in sports journalism that goes beyond the weekend’s player ratings. As one of the biggest names in European football goes into administration, The Guardian carries a piece by the author of Rangerstaxcase.com, a blogger who “pulled down the facade at Rangers”, including a scathing commentary on the Scottish press’s complicity in the club’s downfall:
“The Triangle of Trade to which I have referred is essentially an arrangement where Rangers FC and their owner provide each journalist who is “inside the tent” with a sufficient supply of transfer “exclusives” and player trivia to ensure that the hack does not have to work hard. Any Scottish journalist wishing to have a long career learns quickly not to bite the hands that feed. The rule that “demographics dictate editorial” applied regardless of original footballing sympathies.
“[...] Super-casino developments worth £700m complete with hover-pitches were still being touted to Rangers fans even after the first news of the tax case broke. Along with “Ronaldo To Sign For Rangers” nonsense, it is little wonder that the majority of the club’s fans were in a state of stupefaction in recent years. They were misled by those who ran their club. They were deceived by a media pack that had to know that the stories it peddled were false.”
Over at Rangerstaxcase.com, the site expands on this in its criticism of STV for uncritical reporting:
“There does not appear to be a point where the media learns its lessons. There is no capacity for improvement. No voice that says: we have been misled by people from this organisation so often in the past that we need to get corroboration before we publish anything more. Alastair Johnston, you will recall, artfully created the impression for Rangers’ supporters and shareholders that the payment of the tax bills that are now crushing their club would be the responsibility of the parent company. His words then were carefully chosen to avoid actually lying, but his intended audience seemed in little doubt at the time as to what they thought he meant. Either Mr. Johnston has been misrepresented by STV or he appears to be trying to gain an advantage in the battle to oust Whyte by misleading Rangers’ supporters.”
The piece also includes some interesting reflections on collaborative journalism and crowdsourcing:
“Rangerstaxcase.com has become a platform for some of the sharpest minds and most accomplished professionals to share information, debate, and form opinions based upon a rational interpretation of the facts rather than PR-firm fabrications. In all of the years when the mainstream media had a monopoly on opinion forming and agenda setting, the more sentient football fan had no outlet for his or her opinions. Blogs and other modern media, like Twitter, have democratised information distribution.
“Rangerstaxcase.com has gone far beyond its half-baked “I know a secret” origins to become a forum for citizen journalism. The power of the crowd‑sourced investigation initiated by anyone who is able to ignite the interest of others is a force that has the potential to move mountains in our society. All that is required is an issue about which others are passionate and feel unheard.”
Rangerstaxcase.com is not unique. Combine the passion of sports supporters with the lack of critical faculty in much sports journalism and you have potentially fertile ground.
For my own club, Bolton Wanderers, for example, I turn to Manny Road (site currently laid low by a malware attack).
For the Olympics there will be a regular and easy supply of good news stories to wade through, but also an extremely active network of local and international blogs from people scrutinising the foggier side of the Olympic spirit, which is why I set up Help Me Investigate the Olympics and am encouraging my students to connect with those communities.
January 11 2012
The test of data journalism: checking the claims of lobbyists via government
Day 341 - Pull The Wool Over My Eyes - image by Simon James
While the public image of data journalism tends to revolve around big data dumps and headline-grabbing leaks, there is a more important day-to-day application of data skills: scrutinising the claims regularly made in support of spending public money.
I’m blogging about this now because I recently came across a particularly good illustration of politicians being dazzled by numbers from lobbyists (that journalists should be checking) in this article by Simon Jenkins, from which I’ll quote at length:
“This government, so draconian towards spending in public, is proving as casual towards dodgy money in private as were Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Earlier this month the Olympics boss, Lord Coe, moseyed into Downing Street and said that his opening and closing ceremonies were looking a bit mean at £40m. Could he double it to £81m for more tinsel? Rather than scream and kick him downstairs, David Cameron said: my dear chap, but of course. I wonder what the prime minister would have said if his lordship had been asking for a care home, a library or a clinic.
“Much of the trouble comes down to the inexperience of ingenue ministers, and their susceptibility to the pestilence of lobbying now infecting Westminster. On this occasion the hapless Olympics minister, Hugh Robertson, claimed that the extra £41m was “worth £2-5bn in advertising revenue alone”, a rate of return so fanciful as to suggest a lobbyist’s lunch beyond all imagining. Robertson also claimed to need another £271m for games security (not to mention 10,000 troops, warships and surface-to-air missiles), despite it being “not in response to any specific security threat”. It was just money.
“This was merely the climax of naivety. In their first month in office, ministers were told – and believed – that it would be “more expensive” to cancel two new aircraft carriers than to build them. Ministers were told it would cost £2bn to cancel Labour’s crazy NHS computer rather than dump it in the nearest skip. Chris Huhne, darling of the renewables industry, wants to give it £8bn a year to rescue the planet, one of the quickest ways of transferring money from poor consumer to rich landowner yet found. The chancellor, George Osborne, was told by lobbyists he could save £3bn a year by giving away commercial planning permissions. All this was statistical rubbish.
“If local government behaved as credulously as Whitehall it would be summoned before the audit commission and subject to surcharge.”
And if you want to keep an eye on such claims, try a Google News search like this one.
January 13 2011
SochiReporter Becomes Major Russian Media Player in 2010
2010 was a very good year for us at SochiReporter SochiReporter.ru. In late December we took time to analyze the year's achievements and, to be frank, I was excited about the list of various activities SochiReporter initiated or participated in.
Of course, I try to be cautious about praising myself and our team too much, as satisfaction is always a killer of development and a friend of stagnation. The undeniable good news, however, is that SochiReporter launched in the fall of 2009 and we managed to reach some serious heights in 2010, especially on the marketing side of the product.
SochiReporter is a citizen journalism platform that reports on the preparations for the Olympics, by the people and for the people. As a result of our efforts, the site is today one of the most advanced websites in Sochi, especially when it comes to interactive tools, features, and design. Its possibilities and potential are enormous and still to be realized in many ways. SochiReporter is the best Drupal website in Sochi and one of the best Drupal sites in all of Russia, according to the Russian Drupal community and the local programming community. Right from the start, the project was designed to be much more than just a blog, or a news wire; we envisioned it as a multi-functional tool that can also be an educational platform. SochiReporter is the first global initiative to build a unified digital archive of the multimedia resources about the preparation of the host city for the Olympics.
Stories about the transformation of the city were abundant in 2010. Just recently we received a report about the demolition of the "iron flea market," where an office and shopping center will soon be built. Citizen reporters are able to express how these kinds of changes affect the daily lives of residents.
2010 Highlights
SochiReporter enjoyed wide media coverage from both traditional and online media. Our site was featured in about 300 online media articles, 13 TV reports (that were aired 30 times), and over 20 newspaper stories. Here's a quick list of some of the key activities I engaged in over the past year:
- I organized roundtables and participated in a number of professional conferences, presenting SochiReporter in Russia and worldwide.
- I negotiated with and attracted our first partners.
- I worked to raise the number of users, utilizing social media and other platforms to spread the word.
- I communicated with potential advertisers, delivering presentations in their offices and meeting with them in other venues.
- I worked to diversify the number of topics covered on the website, and increase the brand awareness nationally and globally.
To put it in a nutshell, my activities were aimed at strengthening our young brand.
And here's a look back at some of the highlights from 2010:
January: Cooperating with McDonald's
SochiReporter supported McDonald's International Child Day on November 20. The Ronald McDonald Foundation is working to open child-care rooms in Russian hospitals all over the country (about 10 rooms are already open). SochiReporter, along with just a few other media outlets, helped with charity activities that raised 10 million rubles towards opening three more rooms in three other Russian cities. We partnered with McDonald's for a similar project early this year.
January: A Mobile Journalist School for the Students of Sochi
We organized a two-day seminar offering tips on how to blog, use social networking, and generate content. Professors from the faculty of journalism at Moscow State University took part as lecturers.
February: Sochi Winter Music Conference
SochiReporter was selected to be a media partner of the fifth Sochi Winter Music Conference, a two-day business forum and three-day music program. SWMC brings together well-known figures in show business, music journalists, DJs, producers, promoters, record company owners and managers, radio and TV presenters, brand managers, and music festival organizers. These creative, active and talented people are also sophisticated web users. Thanks to this collaboration, all of the 1,500 participants left with a SochiReporter leaflet in their conference bag.
February: Winter Olympics in Vancouver
SochiReporter participated in the Fresh Media Olympics conference. I Skyped into the conference from Sochi to connect with the dozens of bloggers and citizen reporters who gathered to cover the Winter Olympics.
June: Kinotavr
SochiReporter was selected to be the media partner of Russia's second largest film festival, Kinotavr. We were the only Sochi media to be named a media partner. (Other media partners were big Moscow-based media outlets as the Channel 5, STS, Hello! Magazine, etc.).
June: MIT Center for Future Civic Media Conference
This conference was one of the highlights of the year. After attending, I spent a week in Nebraska as the first Innovator in Residence at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Journalism School, where I met with students and faculty members and presented SochiReporter.
October: Abandon Normal Devices
I presented SochiReporter at the Abandon Normal Devices festival of new cinema and digital culture in Manchester, U.K. I also participated in the one-day #Media2012 conference.
October: Paralympics Action
SochiReporter reporters organized Paralympics Action to spread knowledge about the Paralympics and the Paralympic values in Sochi. This event was also aimed at supporting the creation of an accessible environment for disabled people. SochiReporter will continue to work on this important theme.
English Translation, Roundtables, Mapping
In 2010, SochiReporter started translating citizen journalists' posts into English. We also organized a number of roundtable discussions, including one on how residents of the city can unite on the web to fight smoking. I also spoke at a World Health Organization anti-smoking symposium in Sochi, I also moderated a roundtable on user-generated content at Michigan State University. Participants were the heads of seven leading Russian Internet sites. We continued our collaboration with Kodak, which saw digital cameras given to our citizen reporters. We also worked with Kodak to outline a Moscow replica of SochiReporter. Finally, back in Sochi, we initiated and fostered the creation of the OpenStreetMap of Sochi, which you can see below.
I hope 2011 is just as exciting and eventful.
October 15 2010
The Marriage of Social Media and the Olympics Is Inevitable
I've just returned from England where I spoke at the Abandon Normal Devices (AND) event, an independently funded festival of new cinema and digital culture. It was held in the Cornerhouse, a 25-year-old arts and media space located in the heart of Manchester. My presentation was part of the #media2012 session dedicated to the growing importance of social media in covering the Olympics, and during the preparations for the Games. The event drew artists, designers, researchers and new media folks from many corners of the world, including the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Scandinavia.
Social Media and the Olympics
A special session on social media and the Olympics was organized by Andy Miah, a professor in emerging technologies at the University of the West of Scotland. He's a very well known Olympics culture researcher, and he posed a challenging and thought-provoking question, "Will citizen media take over the 2012 event?"
Miah built a very interesting one-day long program that drew charismatic and knowledgeable speakers. The goal was to have discussions "focused on opportunities, strategy and vision to create a publicly owned new media legacy for the Games." Miah also presented a media blueprint for London 2012, which emphasized the significant role of the new media in covering the Games.
Fortunately, the modern Olympic movement doesn't view the Internet as a threat (as it had). The IOC has started taking steps towards embracing the Net, and that trend seems to be continuing. It's obvious that the future of the Olympics strongly depends on the openness towards, and readiness to accept, new technology. With social media reinventing activism, the Games have a chance to get more people engaged in order to create positive change. And even more important, new media enables organizers to build a public archive of the preparations for the Olympics and the Olympics themselves. The legacy of the Olympic Games is one of the most important issues that the IOC and host country address every time the Olympics is organized. New media are the best tools to preserve and spread the legacy.
Presentation and Discussion
While in Manchester I gave a presentation about SochiReporter and participated in the discussion that followed. I spoke after Kris Krug, one of the creators of the True North Media House, which was established during the Vancouver Games. (Read more about it here.) My presentation was followed by one from Josi Paz of Brazil. He told us how the former Brazilian president had cried when he learned that Rio won its bid, and described the current state of preparations for the Games.
I first met Professor Miah virtually when I Skyped into the W2 Community Media Arts Fresh Media Olympics event back in February 2010. The folks at W2 in Vancouver organized an exciting discussion about social media's growing role in the coverage of the Olympics. The Vancouver Games were truly a breakthrough when it came to the engagement of bloggers; the expectation is that new media will only become more involved in telling the story of the Olympics.
During the event in England, Ruth McKenzie, the director of the Cultural Olympiad for the London 2012 Organizing Committee, pointed out that during the Olympics the London 2012 website expects a peak of 6 million visitors a day. They plan to turn the site into a platform for presenting the culture and soul of Britain.
A Natural Fit
In reality, the popularity and the accessibility of digital media basically requires the organizers of big events such as the Olympic to do their jobs better. The ability for anyone to document anything on their mobile phone and produce high-quality footage is something that organizers have to keep in mind. Fifteen years ago the big media played the role of a watchdog; today everyone is a watchdog.
Here's the simple truth: the Olympics are global and the web is global. What could be more logical than to marry the two? You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
September 14 2010
English-Language Content a Boon to SochiReporter in Russia
On Monday, September 27, SochiReporter will begin publishing in English.
From that point on, every Monday will see us publish new exclusive stories about ongoing preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics, and about life in four of the Big Sochi main areas: Central Sochi, Adler, Khosta and Lazarevskoye. (We will be translating the Russian posts submitted by our citizen journalists.)
Vancouver Test Case
As I previously wrote on Idea Lab, we began testing an English version of SochiReporter during the Vancouver Olympics. We then hired Yuliya Talmazan, a Russian-speaker from Vancouver who worked as an editor at NowPublic, to cover the Olympics for us. We wanted to see what English content would do for our traffic. Simply put, it had a significant effect, driving our traffic up over 300 percent.
Yes, those weeks in February were a hot time for anything Olympics-related. Thousands of people were surfing the web looking for the information about the Games. Our headlines were crafted and customized according to SEO principles in order to attract that traffic and deliver news about what was going on in Vancouver with the Russian team.
We are currently in the process of translating content for our English version, as August and September saw the significant rise in the number of posts at SochiReporter. What makes me especially happy is that the journalistic quality of stories has improved -- that's partly why I made the decision to start translating into English. At first, we will translate about 60 to 70 percent of every post in order to convey the core idea of the story.
SochiReporter.Ru Posts
We're very happy with how the posts on our site are starting to evolve. To give just a few examples, we've received a story about the public hearings related to the reconstruction of the Sochi embankment; the transformation and rebuilding of one of the city's main hotels; the opening of a new center that will provide municipal services to the citizens of Sochi; the creation of an open-air fitness club; a mini-golf championship in Sochi; the arrival of new wolves at the nature reserve; and the start of an around-the-world voyage of a famous sailor and an honored citizen of Sochi and Newport, R.I., Victor Yazikov; and many, many more.
Another interesting story was about Sochi residents who were collecting the clothes and other donations for residents of central Russian towns who lost their houses in the fierce summer peat fires.
All of these stories inspired discussion at SochiReporter.Ru.
June 30 2010
Serving as Media Innovator in Residence at University of Nebraska
Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
Flying over Lincoln, Nebraska, aboard a Delta jet, I peered down at the gently rolling meadows, farmlands and the statue on the peak of the high-rise state capitol, which is situated the heart of this cute town.
The state capitol tower, a historic landmark, is one of the few places in the United States where all three branches of government are housed in one building.
I am on my way back to New York City after spending a wonderful and very efficient week at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as its first Media Innovator in Residence.
The position is part of the new program being enacted by Gary Kebbel, the new dean of the college who officially starts tomorrow. He invited me to spend six days in town to meet with faculty and students and speak about SochiReporter and the project's developments. The idea was for me to share my experiences and participate in discussions about the future of new media.
Lectures and Active Discussions
As Kebbel put it, one of the central ideas of this program is that active entrepreneurs -- people who are right in the middle of working on their projects -- visit the college, demonstrate their work and also focus on the questions and issues not yet resolved. One of the main questions that I ponder is how to make our website sustainable. What new media business model -- or combination of models -- will keep the site running after the Knight grant money runs out in a couple of months?
While visiting the school, I gave six lectures that eventually turned into vibrant discussions with students. In a marketing class we discussed the partnerships that SochiReporter forged with local media, the ways to promote SochiReporter online and offline, and the SochiReporter-McDonald's partnership.
In the design and advertising class, one of the students said she would be interested in working out a plan for the global marketing strategy for SochiReporter. In the reporting class, the students were especially interested in the kinds of stories being generated by our citizen reporters, how the moderation process works, and how we package stories at the website. They wondered which kinds of stories actually cause change and influence the decisions made by the city officials. The students also viewed SochiReporter as an outlet for possible internships next year.
I also spoke to students at the College of Business Administration and with Dr. Sang M. Lee, a distinguished professor and chairman of the Department of Management. We discussed the possible business models based on attracting global and local businesses.
What I found interesting is that in about three weeks Lincoln is hosting a Special Olympics event that will attract thousands of visitors from all over the country. This creates a direct bridge between Lincoln and Sochi, the host of the 2014 Olympics.
I really clicked with Jordan Pascale, a student and staff writer with the Lincoln Journal Star. The newspaper is organizing a new unit to cover the Special Olympics and produce content for the print and the online versions of the paper. Pascale said the plan is to post more original content online than usual and to experiment with it. We talked about the ways of integrating the citizens of Lincoln into covering this event. Some of the school's journalism students will volunteer at the Games and will also be blogging about it.
Trip to Omaha
At one point Dean Kebbel and I took a trip to Omaha to meet with the publisher, executive editor and advertising executives of the Omaha World-Herald, the largest newspaper in the state. It took us 50 minutes driving one way, and I found Omaha to be a fast-developing city with cheerful residents who are excited about the construction of a new, big stadium.
Publisher and company president Terry Kroeger and the vice-president for news and content Larry King (whom I jokingly complemented on his his CNN show when we first met) were open and excited about collaborating with the school. They agreed with Kebbel's statement that the future of journalism builds upon traditional values of quality reporting by using new technologies to enable people to get news in any format, any time, on any device. (The above photo shows Joanna Nordhues from UNL along with Gary Kebbel and Mike Reilly, executive editor of the Omaha World-Herald.)
We spent more than three hours in the newspaper's office, and it was also entertaining to meet with the paper's cartoonist Jeff Koterba. Aside from me, he had a very unusual visitor in his office, as you can see below.
One final interesting fact about the school is that faculty members all just received iPads, and it was great to see them all downloading and trying out applications.
Serving as innovator in residence was a delightful and enriching experience. Since it's a long-term program, I'll always be the first -- but I definitely won't be the last.
Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com.
June 28 2010
Video: BBC at the 2012 Olympics: visualisations, maps and augmented reality
With 2 years to go to the 2012 Olympics, the BBC are already starting to plan their online coverage of the event. With a large, creative team at hand who have experimented with maps, visualisations and interactive content in the past, the pressure is on them to keep the standards high.
At the recent News:Rewired event, OJB caught up with Olympics Reporter Ollie Williams, himself a visualisation guru, to find out exactly what they were planning for 2012.
May 27 2010
SochiReporter Helps Transform Sochi in Preparation for Olympics
I recently spoke with a friend of mine here in Sochi, Russia. She is a specialist in modernizing the technological infrastructure of sanatoriums, which were the places where lucky Soviet working class heroes would be sent to rest and relax. (Think of them as health spas.)
It's a challenge to transform the Soviet-era sanatoriums. For example, her job entails computerizing the files and data and modernizing the registration of new clients. But she said it's exciting work. For her, the most enjoyable part of the job is organizing courses for the staff (doctors, waiters, janitors) who at first seem dazed and confused by the changes and new technology. Gradually, their puzzlement gives way to excitement. "How come we were doing this job manually for so many years?" they eventually ask.
I can definitely relate to her experience, as can many people who are trying to modernize different aspects of Sochi culture and society for the upcoming 2014 Winter Games. It's not just about the modernization of the sanatoriums; it's about every aspect of the locals' lifestyle and the character of the infrastructure. Of course, this is what makes this process of transformation so exciting.
Our project, SochiReporter, a hyper-local citizen news website, is working to create an archive of these changes -- an archive that is built by and for locals. It's never boring, but there is still much work and learning to be done.
Over the last several weeks we have been working at mastering our own technology. We added new features to the site, expanded the social networking component, added links to SochiReporter groups on other social networks, and will add more changes over the next two weeks. Also of note is that the website is loading much faster, partly because of some back-end work, and partly because the new 4G WiMax Internet service called Yota that was launched in Sochi at the end of March.
Becoming a Journalist-Entrepreneur
I have become part of the new breed of journalists-turned-entrepreneurs, and I'm finding a certain amount of pleasure in this lifestyle, crazy though it is.
First of all, I am living between two cities: Sochi and Moscow. Being in Sochi means working with contributors and the people who actually submit content to the website, and promoting the project at the local level. Moscow is a bigger source of financing, a business hub where I can meet with advertisers who might be interested in supporting SochiReporter.
Our team has recently been working on developing a sustainable business model, as the Knight Foundation grant money that enabled us to launch the project and start the experiment will soon run out.
Being an entrepreneur means being simultaneously responsive to two mobile phones, an iPad, a laptop and even a fax machine. It also means being very open to new collaborations and projects. You need to be open to taking risks, and adept at using the knowledge you acquired in traditional media reporting and applying it to new media.
Giving Newspapers a Chance
We recently decided to start giving the local Sochi papers, which don't have an online presence, an opportunity to place their content on our site. This section is called News and it's where we mostly have content from RSS feeds. It's separate from the Reports section, which is filled with reports from citizens and includes original content.
The editor of the first Sochi paper to go on our site is extremely happy about the arrangement. He had been seeking a presence on the web. For our part, we'll see how things go and will probably partner with additional local media. However, our main goal is to provide our content to local media. We hope to expand those possibilities by enabling people to submit reports and photos via mobile phone. Right now, people aren't able to upload content using their phone, though they can read the site.
Marketing
Just a final word about marketing, as it is now one of our primary goals. With the site now built and working, we are focused on telling people about it and getting them to use it. One way of doing that is by being part of big events in the area. We were recently chosen as a media sponsor for one of the biggest annual movie festivals in Russia, Kinotavr. It will take place in Sochi from June 6 to 13.
We are the only Sochi-based media outlet to be among the sponsors. The rest are Moscow-based media outlets. We will receive some very cool promotion during the event and the SochiReporter logo will be present in the Kinotavr daily newsletter, its brochures and on its website.
March 04 2010
Visualisation through sound – the New York Times ‘audiolises’ the Winter Olympics
The New York Times has combined visualisation with audio to produce a fascinating piece of work on the differences between gold winning times and runners-up across a number of Winter Olympics events. It’s a particularly creative approach to the challenge of communicating a relatively abstract story: what separates gold and silver. Well worth a look.
h/t Pete Ashton
March 01 2010
February 27 2010
Olympics 2010: Trash to treasure
February 26 2010
IOC Loosens Citizen Photog Restrictions, Launches Flickr Group
At the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, social media was in its infancy. But in Vancouver, it sometimes seems to overshadow the accredited media.
As expected, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics are the first Games to truly be impacted by social media. As a result, one question leading up to the Games was whether the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would continue to exercise its restrictive policies regarding media coverage and copyright. Would these policies change when bloggers, amateur photographers and other members of the citizen media brigade made their voices heard in Vancouver? Or would the IOC clamp down and seek to silence the voice of the crowd?
It seems the IOC is ready for a bit of change: It recently announced a Flickr Fan group. Slowly, the Olympics are changing to meet the new media world.
This is the second photo essay by Vancouver photographer Kris Krüg (view the first one here; read our Olympics coverage here). This time, he examines how social media is changing the Olympic Games.
Only accredited photographers are allowed to shoot from the media sections inside the Olympic venues. Here, you see an accredited sports photographer, who has to abide by the IOC rules, with a Flickr sticker on his lens. It's great to see old school mixing with new school.
This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».
Olympics 2010: Best hair at the games
Error Kerr, sole member of the Jamaican ski team placed ninth in Ski cross at the 2010 Olympics. Pictured here with Coach Eric "homey" Holmer, left, and J.D. Hoss, spokesperson for the Jamaican ski team. © Garrett Hubbard/USA TODAY
February 24 2010
Olympics 2010: They Fray live at Whistler
The Fray's Isaac Slade brings the crowd to sing "Don't let me go" with him at Whistler Village after the medal ceremony Tuesday evening. Photo by Garrett Hubbard © 2010
February 23 2010
Olympics 2010: Vancouver Today
February 21 2010
Olympics 2010: Street performers cashing in on the Olympics
I can't get the embed code to work right now, so please follow the link above
Olympics 2010: My interview with silver medalist Hannah Teter
Here is a direct link to my video. Many thanks to the talented Rhyne Piggot, a fellow video journalist at USA TODAY, for editing this package together for me!
Olympics 2010: Apolo arrives
Apolo Anton Ohno becomes the most decorated winter Olympian from the USA after his bronze medal finish in the men's short-track 1000 meters Saturday at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, B.C. by Garrett Hubbard/USA TODAY
December 16 2009
How the Olympics Can Thrive in the Digital Age
I'm honored to share that an essay I wrote was selected by the International Olympic Committee for inclusion in the official book that was distributed at the Olympic Congress held in Copenhagen from October 3 to 5. This was a great opportunity, especially given our work on SochiReporter. Here's an image of the book's cover:
I submitted my essay in March as part of the Virtual Olympic Congress, an open international competition that was announced by the IOC in the early fall of 2007. Here's what the IOC said about the competition:
Via the "Virtual Olympic Congress," a dedicated website, over 1,700 people from 90 countries submitted their thoughts on the five themes of the Congress following the "Call for Contributions" launched two years ago. The website was designed to accept written contributions on the themes of the Congress in the form of a written contribution of 1,000 words or less.
One hundred contributions from the general public were chosen by the Congress Editorial Committee for inclusion in the official Congress book, and 20 of those contributors were invited to Copenhagen to attend the Congress. Ten men and ten women from 15 countries around the world spent three days in the Danish capital along with the members of the Olympic family.
Nearly 1,400 Submissions
For the first time in the history of the Olympic Congress, the general public was given the opportunity to have their say on the topics being discussed at the gathering. The IOC invited contributions from anyone, anywhere in the world between October 2007 and March 2009.
The IOC asked people to write about one of five themes. The most popular theme was "Olympic Games: How to keep the Games as a premier event", which received 300 contributions out of 1,319; "Olympic Games: Olympic values" received roughly 240 contributions; and "Olympics and Youth: Moving towards an active society" received about 160 contributions. Roughly 100 submissions were devoted to my topic, which was "The Digital Revolution: How to increase the size of the sports audience." My piece was called, "Olympic Audiences in the Wired World."
In the end, there were 1,319 submissions from 1,148 contributors in 90 countries. Singapore was responsible for the most submissions (249), followed by the U.S. (176) and Japan (129). Interestingly, 276 of the submitted essays focused on rugby. This is because the International Rugby Board encouraged people to write in order to show their support for the inclusion of rugby in future Olympics.
Olympic Audiences in the Wired World
My essay ("Olympic Audiences in the Wired World") was devoted to the future of the Olympics in the digital age. I gave my vision of how the Olympic brand should evolve and adapt to the demands of the wired world, and how it can embrace the challenges brought by new technology. I suggested that the IOC experiment in exciting ways with new media in order to bring its message to communities throughout the world.
Here's an excerpt of my submission:
The answer [to increasing the size of the Olympics audience] lies in the essence of content and content diversification. It's important to provide TV and web viewers (who are getting more and more sophisticated) with more detailed, insider Olympic-related content. However, the focus point should be not just in relying more on the one-way online video streaming of the Games, but on attracting Internet users to shape virtual communities around the various aspects of the Olympic Games. This would enable the IOC representatives to more specifically aim at certain audiences and adjust the content and distribution methods to the demands of those audiences and groups...It is vital to offer effective ways of diversifying content in order to reach a larger and more effectively targeted audience.
In the digital age web users are not just content consumers. They are content producers. And this is the key point which should be considered when thinking about and shaping the successful future of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement in the new media era.
I then offered examples of how some media and entertainment industry giants realized the potential for interacting with their fans, and worked to create online communities and involve people in the marketing of their products. I described how this helped them to extend their brands.
One positive sign is that the IOC embraced social media to help promote the Virtual Olympic Congress. It created a Facebook page, and established an Olympic Congress YouTube channel. It also announced a new video contest that invites people to submit video responses to the question, "How do you see the future of the Olympics?"
Personally, I see the future of the Olympics as being inextricably linked to digital media and online communities. What do you think?
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