Thursday, August 02, 2012

Olwimpics


It makes sense that the London 2012 Olympics is proving to be the most “social” Olympics ever.  The constant updates on every social media site we all check incessantly have been providing many with spoilers before they actually have a chance to watch the event (or, because NBC hasn’t aired it yet due to the new strategy they have employed to maximize ad revenues.)  

A savvy developer acted quickly and has developed a browser extension called “Olwimpics” that detects certain keywords on a webpage and blocks each one of them out with a different Olympic color.  This is of course not a full-proof solution, but it can definitely help to shield key pieces of information and keep up the suspense.   When looking at Twitter, it even warns you if a tweet mentions the Olympics and gives you an option to bypass that post.

People must be finding it useful because Olwimpics has already been downloaded over 2,000 times.  If I was a hardcore follower of the events, this is something I could make use of – I’m one of those people who is really bothered by spoilers.  I was impressed at how quickly the developer was able to come up with the idea, create Olwimpics, and deploy it in time for it to still be relevant.  I wouldn’t be surprised if additional, more advanced versions will follow, and even become monetized, for regular season sporting events, movies, and other “spoiler” relevant entertainment. 

1 comment:

auerblog said...

Totally in agreement. What a mega fail this year's olympics have been for us in the US. CNN newsfeeds have spoiled literally every single high profile event, including swimming, gymnastics, and track and field. Whatever events they are showing during daytime hours have been littered with shooting and fencing matches. I never thought T.V. would ruin one of my favorite, and quite frankly only, sporting events I watch on television. I guess I will stick to streaming (which is equally lame given that I have a 9" computer screen and a 72" television) for the remainder of the olympics, but will be sure to blog about how NBC has royally failed the viewing public this go around.