Philip Michaels writes a great review of why the CBC Olympic Coverage makes NBC seem like the pathetic old has-been it is. [here]

The US is ready for more NBC. Think you can actually deliver by 2010? When the Canadian broadcasters — even CTV! — will make you look really pathetic?

Didn’t think so.

Tags: cbc, NBC, Olympic, Olympics, United States

Jeremiah Owyang has a great think piece on the idea of embedded content. [here]

The piece sums up the foundational idea that has been driving the debate I dropped my self into with regards to the NBC (or any old-tyme media network’s) coverage of the Olympics. The concept of content-management by the leaders online has moved beyond the idea of control, and towards attributed sharing.

It should no longer be a world where national media entries control what you see, but rather the best media gets the highest rating. Would people in the US like to see how other nations treasure their athletes? Maybe another network will focus on Football, Swimming, Diving, etc. more than your network does, so you will chose that content, and share that with your friends/followers/groupies.

If NBC allowed people to embed the content on their own site, they still get the eyeballs (How 1999! But I heard someone use it on NPR yesterday), and the cred that goes with “Joe/Susie says this is the best content and has decided to put it up on their site”.

Embedded content goes to the idea that the best content/presentation will always be the most successful. Controlling the content, as the NBC monopoly on the Olympics has pointed out, just motivates people to find ways to get other perspectives.

Tags: content, distribution, embeddable, embeds, Jeremiah Owyang, NBC, Olympics

In the community of voices I follow online, one of the continuing themes is the narrowness and antiquated coverage provided by NBC(I launched into a screed on the topic this weekend).

I have also heard that many people are using the tools at their disposal (open proxy servers being the most notable) to circumvent the geo-location tools of the providers to view coverage from other national providers. I thought I would share some of my experiences with two of the providers, BBC and CBC.

BBC

Finding proxy servers in the UK turned out to be relatively simple, and I was able to get to the BBC site and view, with substantial performance penalties, some of the video on the site. This was a tactic I have used before, as I am a fan of English Football, and need to use this method to gain access to highlights and match-day broadcasts.

CBC

I am, well, disappointed with the lack of success I have had with the CBC. I hear from people in the homeland that the coverage makes NBC looks like the US is the only country in the Olympics, where the CBC provides a true global perspective. However, finding a proxy server that can fool the CBC video servers has been impossible. Therefore, I continue to not watch any Olympics at all.

I am sure that there are other means (P2P, Torrents, etc.), but I am finding that, well, I don’t care that much. It is the events in South Ossetia / Georgia, Zimbabwe, and other hot-spots that I am finding far more relevant to my day-to-day life.

So while I appreciate some of the challenges posed by circumventing the monopoly of the mind that NBC wants to claim, once that was achieved with the BBC, I found that I was in a So what? position.

But before I give up, has anyone had any success with getting the CBC feeds to work outside Canada?

Tags: bbc, cbc, Georgia, media, monopoly, NBC, Olympics, South Ossetia, sports, Zimbabwe

Robert Scoble has launched a thread over on FriendFeed [here] discussing the NBC Olympics broadcast schedule and how the reality of the Internet and Social Media is changing how things are broadcast.

People are recommending the CBC feed. I would likely say the people in the UK would recommend the BBC feed. But I can tell you one thing: Samantha and I have boycotted this year’s Olympics.

If there is an interesting event, or final, I will search out the video. But the idea of watching the jingoistic, materialist, flag-waving, US-centric view of the Olympics makes me ill. I don’t like the Chinese regime for a variety of reasons; but the idea of having the US Olympic team shoved down my throat by NBC while McDonalds and Coke sell me a new world is enough to make anyone give up tv forever.

Rant Off.

UPDATE: Seems Henry Blodget has a similar opinion, with less rant. [here]

Tags: corporate, jingoistic, NBC, NBC Olympics, Olympics

In the past, I have lined up to buy Canadian Olympic team goods from Roots. Good quality, and just generally cool and useful stuff.

This year, HBC (the Hudson’s Bay Company) is doing Canadian Olympic apparel.

This is like grandma dressing a teenager.

I am so disappointed. What was the COC thinking?

Technorati Tags: Olympics, HBC, Roots, Canada

Tags: app, ASP, Canada, cool, HTML, HTTP, it, Olympics, Om, Technorati, teen, teenager