Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA by Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

NBC Universal unveiled a detailed description of how its ambitious digital coverage of the Olympic games will play out online, on mobile devices, on VOD and via interactive television systems (Cynopsis 7/29):

• NBCOlympics.com on MSN will be the hub for news, results, schedules and 2,200 hours of live streaming broadband coverage. Also look here for tutorials on how to connect to mobile, gaming, VOD and other outlets
• The Olympics will be a major coming out party for partner Microsoft‘s Silverlight 2 video platform, powering 20 different concurrent streams of 25 different sports. Functionality includes picture-in-picture and quad-screen viewing
• An online viewing guide will detail complete coverage across NBCU broadcast and cable outlets with localized listings and athlete news sourced by zip code
• A full complement of widgets will keep web surfers updated on news, video, athletes, metal counts, results and tune in schedules. (Digital agency partner 360i has been spreading the word about these across the blogosphere)
• Two-screen companion games will challenge viewers to answer trivia questions, polls and other games while watching the telecasts
• NBCU Olympics Mobile will offer on demand news, video coverage and breaking news alerts. A WAP site will feature a scaled down version of much of what’s on the main site
• Olympics content will be downloadable via Amazon’s Unbox and Microsoft’s Windows Media Center and Zune player

ESPNU will launch an HD simulcast network on Aug. 28 just in time for College Football season. The collegiate sports network, ESPN’s 4th HD net, expects to broadcast more than 70 live College Football games and over 200 overall events during its first year. Go to ESPNU.com for a schedule of this year’s televised football matchups beginning with Vandy at Miami (Ohio) on Aug 28. (Cynopsis 7/29)

Since its debut on iTunes on July 14, the full seasons of MOJO HD‘s Wall Street Warriors, seasons #1 and #2, have been the number one and number two most downloaded TV series on iTunes in the reality TV category. The series, which launched on MOJO HD in late 2006 and aired its second season earlier this year, is a behind-the-scenes look into the high pressure world of financial investors. (Cynopsis 7/29)

I watched only 30 seconds but I’m already into it.

Amie Street, the indie music store that prices songs by their popularity, has pre-released The Walkmen’s new album You & Me three weeks before its scheduled launch date. The entire album is available for $5, with all proceeds going to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as part of the site’s “Download To Make a Difference” campaign. You can download the album here. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/28/get-the-walkmen-album-early-help-charity-on-amiestreet 7/28)

Hewlett Packard, Intel and Yahoo announced the Cloud Computing Test Bed this morning. Executives from the three companies are holding a 9 am PST conference call to discuss the new venture. Participating are Prith Banerjee, Senior Vice President, Research, HP and Director, HP Labs; Prabhakar Raghavan, Head of Yahoo! Research; and Andrew Chien, Vice President, Corporate Technology Group, Intel and Director, Intel Research. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/29/cloud-computing-test-bed-live-notes-from-the-conference-call 7/29)

Long outplayed by two Indian brothers, Hasbro finally delivers a massive counter blow to Scrabulous, one of the most loved games on Facebook. Scrabulous fans in North America will see the below message when they try to play the game.  (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/29/endgame-scrabulous-gets-wiped-off-facebook 7/29)

Newly formed media-buying group Mediabrands will buy at least $1 million in ads from cable providers under a new partnership with Microsoft-owned Navic Networks, whose interactive ad-buying technology mimics the process of buying online ads. A part of the Interpublic Group, Mediabrands is composed of four agencies that will each assign employees to explore Navic’s technology. The Wall Street Journal (free content) (7/28)

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