There, I said it. I really needed to get that off my chest. It's 2010. We don't have hoverboards, but we sure as heck should know how to run large scale interactive websites.
I think I have some unique perspective on this. I'm a technologist that has been experimenting with cutting edge code and devices for over a decade. I was at the 2006 Olympics in Torino, where we put on a symposium around "The Olympics and Web 2.0".
The ticket sales site crashed in Torino back in 2006. I didn't expect that it would crash horribly in 2010.
In Torino, we were using Nokia phones, ShoZu, and cheap Italian 3G connectivity to take pictures and upload them to Flickr in realtime. I remember Darren Barefoot watching from back home. These were isolated incidents.
Today, just hit reload on the #van2010 tag on Twitter, and you'll get a constant stream of on the ground and watching from afar commentary. With links, photos, and hashtags a plenty. This may very well go down as the first "Internet" Olympics with this kind of activity.
But I think we blew it. The "we" being CTV, CBC, and most definitely VANOC initiatives. OK, perhaps I shouldn't expect much from top down IOC controlled bodies who believe in the "magic of television".
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