Mobile sites focused on the Beijing Olympics are springing up like daisies. Yahoo! has a mobile site for the big games, as does NBC, of course and I’m sure there are dozens, if not hundreds more in the works. When I first saw this I was pretty excited both as a consumer and as mobile marketer.
But as soon as I logged into the Yahoo mobile site I realized something interesting – I won’t need to use the mobile site to keep up with what’s going on because of the time zone difference. When it is daytime here in Denver (when I am most likely to be mobile and want to check in on the latest goings-on in the games away from my PC and TV) it is the middle of the night in Beijing. Nothing will be happening live for which I’ll need immediate access on my mobile.
So, as a consumer in the Mountain Time Zone, I’m not expecting the multitude of Olympics-themed mobile websites to impact my Olympics news gathering experience at all. Around the world though, I imagine it will be quite wonderful to always know what is going on with the games from anywhere.
As a mobile marketer I am very interested to see how advertisers will tie into mobile marketing using the Olympics as the catalyst. Frankly, I was disappointed that there weren’t more mobile-focused commercials during the Superbowl this year and I hope the Olympics will be different.
I hope there are fun and exciting ways I can interact with the Olympics via my mobile – whether I am at home with my trusty Treo by my side or out and about but still rooting for the athletes.
