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Silverlight To Power 2008 Beijing Olympics Website

Mon, 2008-01-07 08:46 — mikepotter
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The big news out of CES for RIA watchers is the news that Microsoft Silverlight will be used, at least in part, on the website for the 2008 Olympics to be held later this year in Beijing. NBC Universal, who owns the sole rights to the Olympics in the US, will team up with Microsoft and deliver enhanced video for the Beijing Olympics using the Silverlight platform.

The press release doesn't answer many questions that people have about this - namely what portion of the site will be based on Silverlight. This is a smart move for Microsoft, but likely won't have much effect on the distribution of the Silverlight plugin. For the last summer Olympics in Athens, NBCOlympics.com had only 13 million unique visitors for the entire event. In comparison, Adobe Flash Player is installed about 8 million times per day. If those numbers stay the same, Adobe will install more versions of the Flash Player a full week (7 days) before any track and field medals are given out.

More commentary is available online at Ryan Stewart's blog, TechCrunch, and Beet.tv.

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Tue, 2008-01-08 16:17 — andrew (not verified)

Hi Mike, Boy do I think

Hi Mike,

Boy do I think you're underestimating the significance of this. Remember how great web video was back in 2004 (when the Athens olympics took place)? If they provide a lot of timely, quality streams of the events in Beijing many people will likely be compelled to install the runtime. (I also notice you're comparing 2004 unique site visits to 2007 non unique Flash Player installs).

Don't get me wrong, while I think this was a great business move on Microsoft's part, it's not going to do anything to benefit users (or the Olympics themselves). As a Linux user I have serious doubts I'll be able to access the content. And as a Canadian I'd probably be region blocked by NBC regardless of the tech used to deliver the content.

Cheers,
A.

Fri, 2008-01-11 10:07 — mikepotter
mikepotter's picture

Andrew: Thanks for the

Andrew:
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm wrong. Yes, online video has grown a ton since the last Olympics. However, that's not enough. First of all, the site is really only targeted to US citizens - as you point out, us Canadians probably won't be allowed to view it, or will head to the CBC to view it. According to Wikipedia, only about 56 million US citizens have broadband access (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_Internet_access#Broadband_worldwide). So, total market is about 56 million people - with some others at work (those lucky enough to not have systems locked down) also able to install it. Let's call it 100 million, giving them the benefit of the doubt. What percentage of those people do you think will actually visit that website? Maybe 20%? 1 in 5? Let's double it, and say 40% of all the high speed subscribers will visit that one site for their Olympics news - 40 million people. Now, not every one of those is going to install the plugin - say another 1/2 of that (which would be an amazing conversion rate). 20 million installs.

Honestly, I don't see this being a huge deal for them. The publicity is great, but the reality is that this isn't going to do much for the install base of Silverlight.

Mike

Wed, 2008-01-09 21:18 — Joseph (not verified)

Adobe Vs. Microsoft

I've tried Silverlight... I just hate their IU, SDK, and everything about running it. Dosen't work everywhere!!!
Works different on different Browsers.

Wed, 2008-01-16 10:54 — flex air (not verified)

this is a very nice

this is a very nice application !

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