Olympic online data just in from BBC. 34 million unique viewers on their site alone. Astonishing numbers.

You don't think the world has changed? Have a look at the video highlights of the London games 1908. Don't you love the Ladies tennis?

I know were all finished with, what was to be fair, excellent Olympic games. And this is the last time I'll mention them.

However, the BBC have just released social data about how well their online business performed and it's not unreasonable to use it as a typical benchmark.

It covers 2 weeks when 34 million unique users, saw BBC coverage online. 34 million online visitors. Astonishing.

On their busiest day it delivered one quadrillion bytes of data (yeah, it's a lot) and that busiest day was when Brit, Bradley Wiggins (Tour de France winner and secret smoker) won gold on August 1st.

After the opening and closing ceremonies, the men's 100m final was most watched (Usain Bolt) both on and offline globally.

They keep referring to these Games as "the digital games" and these results show that's exactly what they were.

In one 24 hour period, the online BBC traffic was higher for them than the total hours online for the 2010 World Cup! They also looked at device usage and saw it was generally, PC's during the day, Mobile usage from 6pm and then Tablets took over from circa 9pm.

The other benefit of this of course, is that they introduced BBC online to a new audience whom might very well comeback. It's really a superb performance but clearly shows consumers preferring to watch/follow online. It's further proof of the domination of Social and all things digital.

According to NBC (whom you might remember really messed up and if not, go here http://streamabout.blogspot.ie/2012/07/nbc-olympics-and-way-brands-can-easily.html), these games were the most watched TV event in history as well. So online got its share too or you might say, online viewers made it the most watched TV event. 

According to Nielsen, 219 million people watched some part of the games in the US alone (a viewer they consider as someone who watches 6 minutes or more). The Superbowl by contrast, gets circa 100 million viewers.

The closing ceremony had 31m viewers.

Irish broadcaster RTE, hasn't got data yet but indicated, based on data usage, it had 3,500 online at one time to watch an event. Which seems to me incredibly low? Katie Taylor? Oh sorry, that's right, their server went down just before broadcast.

In Canada, each Canadian watched 21 hours on average. 

Of course all Press titles saw increases and generally an uplift in advertising.
But all in all, this was the watershed event for online viewing and for Social Media. There's no doubt about it that it made online an intuitive place to go and almost "normal".

It shows how well planned media can generate new traffic and sell more ads by using online effectively. People are prepared to go online and watch something if it's good and will do so in huge numbers.

Extraordinary numbers that will pale by the time we get to Rio.

NBC, The Olympics and the way brands can easily lose control on Social Media.

One of the real issues around Social, is the loss of control you have for your brand. When you get it wrong, you have critics everywhere and even anonymously, who will spread that criticism far and wide and quickly. It can destroy you overnight.


You have to be real careful.


I was also looking at YouTube and note the amount of brands that keep their comments open. In other words by letting anyone comment on their channel. Abercrombie + Fitch do that.....and more of that later. Equally Irish national brands are leaving themselves open to libel.


But firstly NBC, one of America's largest broadcaster who made the news recently when they divorced from Microsofts online joint venture MSNBC
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4671466363911057753#editor/target=post;postID=3087600761229729716

What's happened to NBC to begin a tirade against them was the Olympics Opening ceremony. They seemingly promised to stream it live and didn't. Secondly they did stream USA swimmer Ryan Lochte but on a delay...however people thought they were seeing it live (it's more expensive to show programming live). So you're watching the man swim live (you think) and then you start getting the result texted to you?


That race also featured US legend Michael Phelps (coming in fourth) but witholding it from live broadcasting because they felt they could make more ad money by showing it later, is unforgiveable.


They didn't show Kobe and the USA dream team basketball opener beating France (but way too close of a game I thought?) - instead opting to show Women's cycling.


One reason, apart from just poor planning, is that by carrying key sporting moments at prime times rather than "live", they generate more media advertising. Old media rules not suited to a new world.


The coverage on their website + Apps has no commentary either which for most of us, without a clue who's good in the 100 metres or the Dressage, is fairly useless. If ever commentary was needed, it's at The Olympics.


The hashtag that has been set up is (hash)nbcfail.


NBC Producers are going onto the hashtag to answer the critics but frankly fruitlessly. Piers Morgan, UK "Larry King" chat show host, was one of the Twitter critics, complaining about not being able to see the opening ceremony.


Promises unkept is the problem and that does not go down well on Social Media.


Without a doubt, only three days in and NBC has already lost its Olympic audience. As well as breeding a new groundswell of critics. YouTube is also fundamentally that platform too - if you allow comments.


This is the infamous 10 million Abercrombie + Fitch "Call me maybe" video (yeah, I know and no I'm not). If you look into the recent comments, they're pretty worrying - definitely sexist, probably racist and certainly homophobic. Abercrombie + Fitch is taking a chance here on their channel on YouTube allowing unmoderated comments.

Critics will use Social media freely and my great friends at Irish broadcasting, should watch their YouTube channel. All you need is one little bit of libel and it could prove expensive.


Social Media means you can lose control of your brand and endanger it long term.


NBC are learning that in what should have been their flagship week.

(Update Today- Techcrunch, the influential blog, have started a campaign to ask people not to watch The Olympics on NBC. http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/28/please-dont-watch-nbc-tonight-or-any-night/ . It gets out of hand so easily...)










(And a better hetreosexual version of call me maybe that started the whole thing. Well, you know, just for balance.

Or The Miami Dolphin Cheerleaders....it's going on and on and on....)

Olympics, The Social Media Games starts Today. Where to look online.

These Olympics,will be the Social Media and online games, if ever there was one, because Social Media has exploded since the last games in 2008. 

Facebook alone has gone from 100 million users to 900 million. Tweeting had really only started too, Pinterest didn't exist and Mashable was a proper blog, back then.

Already Twitter has claimed its first victim and they don't even start until today.

Greek triple jumper, Voula Papachristou, (above) has been exited from The Olympic Games.....because of a tweet.

She tweeted "With so many Africans in Greece…at least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat homemade food!!!” yep, hilarious. But she wasn't notified before or after, the committee just issued a press release and that was that. If your life revolved around training and preparation for the games, it's a pretty big deal to be banned.


It also had the knock-on affect of her fellow team members being told that they were not to use Social Media except to talk about the games, not themselves.

But if you're looking out online for the games, here's some places that you might like to start with.

The IOC Olympic Athletes Hub (http://hub.olympic.org/) is a good place to start. Good search features, great updates and an easy list of tweeters to follow.


Broadcaster NBC has its own Olympic Channel (http://www.nbcolympics.com/) which looks really good including live streaming. So you'll see lots of video here but the real focus is on the USA team obviously. 


I actually liked Yahoo's version - very Social and seems to have lots of stuff going on (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/) plus a nice piece on Beach volleyball, "its popularity explained". Which somehow they've managed to make a story out of rather than just posting a pic.


The Storify site is a little more upbrow and less Social, but possibly quite cool (http://storify.com/topics/olympics). Lots of video so it makes it worth a browse but not at the same content level as say NBC or the IOC Hub.


Sports Illustrated, the real insider here, is terrific (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2012/) but will lack the events coverage. Still, if you want the inside track, go here. Nice pics too....


The Telegraph, probably the greatest newspaper on the planet, has really good local insights because the games are in its home town (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/). Also has a nice blog and twitter feed so this is where I'll be going for sure.


Facebook have a hub of course (https://www.facebook.com/pages/olympics) but frankly, I find it boring. Still if you're on Facebook no harm in liking it I suppose. But it just looks a bit dull and dreary...so far.


And the ESPN site, not to be forgotten (http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/) is pretty good as you'd expect offering lots of interactivity.

Mashable also have suggestions regarding the top 25 competitors you should follow on Twitter ( http://mashable.com/2012/07/24/olympic-athletes-twitter/).


And an interesting one from left of centre is Zoomph (https://www.zoomph.com/Events/london2012/default.aspx) with geolocation. Actually it's pretty smart.

Athletics was never my thing but it's clear these games are going to offer brands lots of opportunities online. Social Media will be really ramping it up and perhaps bring in a new audience whom previously, mightn't have been bothered.

As they say at the start of most Agency creative meetings and it's not funny anymore - Let the games begin.