Mobile Milestones: Olympics to Election
Three weeks ago, we took a look at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing as a catalyst for mobile internet adoption worldwide. Now, we can take a look at some interesting statistics from this milestone event:
- According to China Mobile, 1 million viewers watched more than 300,000 hours of mobile TV programs covering the Olympics.
- NBC Universal made more than 3,600 hours of coverage available online, via mobile phones and across its cable channels.
- In the first week of the games, NBC registered about 500,000 people a day who requested Olympic content over their mobile devices.
- By the end of the games, more than 6 million users had accessed NBC’s Olympics mobile content.
- Also according to China Mobile, almost 500,000 calls were made at the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies.
- During the games, wireless data roaming traffic from Aicent’s eXchange services — involving 225 mobile network operators in 106 countries — surged by 40% over the same period the month before.
Draw your own conclusions and share them with us.
Now, we seem to be moving seamlessly from the Olympics to the next major mobile milestone — the 2008 Presidential Election.
Last weekend, Google announced on its blog the launch of a special election news portal: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/08/following-us-elections-on-your-phone.html
Then Buzzwire launched a mobile channel offering entertainment-oriented coverage of the Democratic National Convention and featuring Barely Political’s Obama Girl: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.san&s=89108&Nid=46432&p=920849
This came on the heels of Obama’s SMS announcement of his vice-presidential running mate, Senator Joseph Biden. Pundits called it the biggest mobile marketing event ever.
Ten weeks until Election Day. What’s next?
- Tod Bottari
