Journalists like Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward have questioned whether social media or the web have anything to contribute to journalism, but the case of Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong shows alternative sources like blogs and Twitter can play a powerful role in breaking news.
After an intense series of live sports events online — from the U.S. Open and NBA playoffs to Wimbledon and the Tour de France — it’s odd to hit a black-out window for the All-Star Game. Everything is geared to sending fans to their TVs.
Cycling fans have some exciting weeks ahead of them, with the Tour de France starting this weekend. Most of the races will happen during work hours in the U.S., but NBC is selling an all-access pass to watch the entire tour online and on your iPad.
Google is now offering the ability to track an entire team’s progress through the three weeks of the legendary Tour de France cycling race. The HTC-Columbia team is using Android phones and an application called MyTracks to provide real-time location, elevation, speed and heart rate data.
Based on the early numbers we’re seeing, the Olympics are poised to put an exclamation point on an already strong year for sports video online. So how exactly have the strides, swings and slam-dunks performed in 2008? We’ve pulled together data from some of the biggest sporting events of the year to get a better picture.
March Madness: 4.8 million unique visitors throughout the two-week tournament (CBS would not provide the number of streams).
Major League Baseball: 1 to 1.5 million people tune in to watch a live game each day.
NBA Western Conference Finals: 3 million live streams were served by TNT.
Pocono 500: 712,000 streams were watched at NASCAR.com.
U.S. Open Finals: 5.2 million streams were served by NBC and the USGA, with 4 million streams testing the limits of the respective sites for Tiger Woods’ down-to-the-wire playoff victory.
Despite the fact that the NBC remake of The Bionic Woman was canceled so quietly no one’s bothered to miss it, Comedy.com’s re-imagining of the failed series achieves more than a few chuckles — if only because it’s funny to imagine Amy Winehouse doing anything productive with her life.
And whether or not you’re a cycling nerd, you’re probably not immune to the excitement of the Tour de France, which kicked off on July 5th and will continue through July 27th. But how to watch the legendary cycling race without cable TV — or being fluent in French? We’ll help you out over at NewTeeVee Station.
