Olympic Games

I'm a very big fan of the Olympic Games, both the summer and winter editions. These weeks are the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada. The Olympic Games are very popular and the media are making use of this popularity. Because the Olympic Games are in Canada there is a time difference of nine hours. This makes it more difficult for people here in the Netherlands to watch their favourite sports live. All the sports at the Olympics are broadcasted here in the Netherlands live at night, but most people don't feel like getting up in the middle of the night, or they simply forget that a specific sport or part of sport is broadcasted.

For both types of people there is a solution. When you can't get up at night, because of work or because you just love to get a whole night of sleep, there is a summary every morning of the night before. Also, there is the possibility to watch every speed skating distance, without knowing what the results are. When you go to the website http://www.afstandgemist.nl/ you can look back the last distance. The major advantage of this site is that they don't already show you who won the race, and you can look back every couple that skated seperately. So if you only missed the last couple of races, you don't have to look back all the races, but you can start where you ended.

And for the people who will forget that a specific sport or part of sport will be broadcasted that they would like to see, the NOS offers a SMS-remindingservice. This remindingservice is only for the sport speed skating. When you make use of this remindingservice you can register for what distance(s) you want to be woken up. The NOS will sent you a SMS until three minutes before the distance will begin.

I think that this SMS-remindingservice is a very good example of how you can use information technology in order to allow people to follow the Olympic Games at night. Although I don't use this reminderservice myself, I think it is a great way of making sports at night more accessible for the people. Of course, there will always be people who will say: "why don't you just set an alarm", but I feel that this is a great way of offering an extra opportunity for the people.

However, it is a bit disappointing that the other Olympic sports aren't taken into account in this remindingservice. When this would have been done, this reminderservice would be even better.

Have a great time with the remaining days of the Olympic Games!

Kelly