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A Poke in the Eye of the Online/Multimedia/Olympic Village Industrial Complex


Vol. I, No. XVI


[scientifically tested to take no more than 3 minutes to read; thanks to Swatch, official timer of 3MR]

"Let me Roast. But if I cannot Roast, let me be brave in the attempt."
--Special Olympics Oath (revised and abridged)

Online Olympics Torched

Atlanta, Georgia, Center of the Universe -- We're not sure which we're sick of more: every gosh-darn new event (Super Bowl, prez elections, rodeos) getting Webbed, or the media reacting like these developments are more important than the events themselves. In other words, we've reached a pitch of Internet media hysteria so fevered, that Olympic events (you know, where people compete in sports) have been drowned out by news of high-tech systems failing and Web sites devoted to Greco-Roman wrestling. Since 3MR aims to serve those who have a nagging feeling that these Web sites suck, but are a bit shy about checking them out, we did the dirty work for you...once again.

Our ever-unscientific check of Olympic online venues brought us as much tedium, frustration and dead ends as you'd get on a MARTA bus to Opening Ceremonies. For once, the Internet really is as good (or bad) as being there. The gory details:

--Atlanta Journal & Constitution site--
We had one goal: find out what happened in last night's U.S. men's soccer match against Portugal. This official-looking site promises "the latest scores" but only delivers overloaded servers that take forever to find lite-news ("IBM struggles to get kinks out of computer system"--was this dated 1986 or '96?). You have to drill down through gobs of screens to get to anything useful. Highlight: a list of sports and witty little comments about each one for the, er, Olympically challenged. A virtual "Olympics for Dummies" (eat your heart out, IDG):
fencing: "physical chess" with a point.
diving: aerial gymnastics with a splash.
synchronized swimming: don't let their smiles fool you [what, are they packing uzis?]

--NBC--
Which would you rather download, the "Olympic Theme: Bugler's Dream" (561K or 1.7MB) or videos of American stars performing springboard and javelin (1.3MB to 3.9MB)? Isn't technology wonderful? You can spend a half hour downloading 30 seconds of video, that you could have seen by watching NBC last night. That aside, it's a nicely designed site. Oh, we found the soccer score--U.S. 1, Portugal 1--but no capsule story of the game, and no explanation of who scored for the U.S., despite a full box score otherwise. Highlight: Sections in the Web site include News, Athletes, Sports. Sports!? That's like ESPN having a show on sports.

--Sports Illustrated--
We clicked on "Up-to-the-Minute Olympic Results" and got a "NOT FOUND" screen. Now we know how it feels to be a sports reporter at the Games waiting for IBM to fix the computers...

--AT&T Olympic Games Connection []--
We only visited this site to see the Olympic Village Live Cams. Camera 1: an ugly mural which looks like it was painted by Leroy Neiman's acid freak child; Camera 2: a dark shot of the backs of press people at a news conference. Whoever is speaking is obstructed.

--Pittsburgh 2012--
Ol' Steel Town wants to host the 2012 Games, "thus Pittsburgh will have a definite reason for making civic improvements." As if they need a reason... Why Pittsburgh? It is a "cultural center, with such diversely talented people as Henry Mancini, Charles Grodin, and Andy Warhol." Two of them are dead, and one stars in "Beethoven" movies about a wacky St. Bernard. Now that's diversity. Also, the site touts Pittsburgh's "emerging high-tech business." Why does every old industrial town now think it's the center of the tech universe just because its Kinko's does desktop publishing?

P.S. Finding the soccer story was much easier when we simply opened today's newspaper. Yet another tale of the triumph of old media.

*********************************************************

"3-Minute Roast" is a weekly, advertisement-free, opinionated rip on anything that strikes our fancy in the online world.

Max Schlickting - Editor-in-Chief
Barbara Yalpsid - Online Editor
Lefty Periwinkle - First Amendment Expert
Mark Glaser - Unpaid Editorial Intern

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This e-newsletter is copyright 1997 Mark Glaser

 

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