The 2012 Summer Olympic Games are swiftly approaching and media juggernaut NBC and internet titan Google have been preparing with simulated “war games”. The “war games” pose as cyber attacks and other digital impasses that could threaten the highly anticipated online coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. The events will last for seventeen days, from July 27th to August 12th in London, England. NBC is expecting millions to tune into their various platforms to watch the live coverage. To reinforce security, Google will be supervising the streams.
The 2008 Beijing Games pulled in 75.5 million video streams online. The success of those games spurred NBC onto new successes already this year as it streamed the Super Bowl online for the first time to 2.1 million streams. NBC is hoping to beat the Beijing tally and estimates 3,500 hours of coverage. This enormous undertaking requires extra digital “hands” touching the coverage, which means additional places for err.
The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Journal states,
“The 17-day games will be captured in London and then sent to NBC’s New York and Stamford, Conn., offices, where advertising will be inserted. The footage will then go to Google’s offices in San Bruno, Calif., where it will be prepped for online and streamed across the search giant’s networks to several NBC sites. Cable or satellite subscribers will be able to go online to watch the entirety of the games live or in replay.”
The Olympic Games streams will be popular targets for both fans and hackers during the seventeen days. As such, the two companies are using these staged games to prepare for possible future hacker attacks, viewer traffic shifts, and hardware malfunctions. The “war games” have already succeeded in three countries as NBC and Google attempt to show their ability to respond to these attacks quickly and effectively. PaidContent finds that 71% of U.S. citizens intend on following the Olympics on TV, while only a shockingly low 16% of stateside people will watch it on a PC.
Where will you watch the Olympics?
A. Television
B. The Internet
C. Mobile Device
D. All Of The Above
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