The 2012 Olympics are here and I’ve got the Olympic fever. If the TV is on at my house, we are watching whatever Olympic sport is on at the time. When I can’t watch the Olympics on TV, I go online to keep tabs on what’s going on.
London 2012 Results App
My go to app is the London 2012 Results App (free, iTunes & Google Play). I’ve got it on my iPad and Android phone and I can see the events schedule, track results, follow athletes, and my personal favorite, keep tabs on the medal count. I’ve even setup push notifications to let me know when USA earns a medal, the daily USA summary, and daily medal summary for all countries.
NBC
NBC has exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the United States, so we rely on NBC to show as many events as possible. Our cable provider currently has 7 channels dedicated to the Olympics. Check your local listings and set your DVR if you are so inclined. We actually dropped DVR at our house about a month ago and there’s been a few moments where it would have been nice to rewind, but for the most part we haven’t missed it at all.
You can also download the NBC Olympics Live and Live Extra apps to follow the games and watch clips on your preferred device. I haven’t done too much exploring on either app but I can see using the Live Extra app to catch up on events I missed. (You can only use the Live Extra app to watch live events if you sign in with your cable provider account. If you don’t have cable, then this app isn’t going to work well for you.)
Twitter, the Olympics, and the time zone differences can be tricky. If you want to wait and see the results as you watch it on TV, don’t get on Twitter unless you want to see a spoiler.
Another way to follow your favorite Olympians on Twitter is to create a list. Lists are a great way to follow a group of Twitter accounts. You can create your own lists or follow lists other people have created. I like using lists because I can follow someone on via Twitter list without following them and their tweets showing up in my main Twitter feed. And since they aren’t in my main Twitter feed, I don’t see any spoilers.
I’ve got a Twitter list started that I’m trying to add to as I can. You can check it out here and follow if you want.
How do you follow the 2012 Olympics? Do you use an app or Twitter? Or do you avoid social media completely until you’ve had a chance to watch the competition?
What’s your favorite Olympic sport and favorite Olympic athlete? Let us know in the comments!
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About the Author
These apps have horrible customer reviews though, so I decided to just stay with DRA. I have Dish, and the free Dish Remote Access app (DRA) lets me take my entire TV lineup with me. If I’m out on the go I can just turn on my tablet and watch NBC or whatever as if I were at home. A Dish coworker convinced me to try it, and I LOVE both the quality and quantity of coverage I can get. I can even set or watch my DVR!
The Dish Remote App sounds awesome! We use Brighthouse but can only access the app to watch TV when we are at home, which is the opposite of helpful if you want to watch something when you are not at home.
I haven’t had any issues with the NBC Extra Live app and its been pretty simple to use. I can see how people are disappointed with the app not working as expected if they don’t have a cable provider. I’ve updated this post to make it clear that to use the Live Extra app, you need to have a cable subscription.
Yup, that’s the unfortunate part. I’m not too familiar with Brighthouse, but it sure seems like these apps are somewhat dependent on a user having a cable or satellite description; which I’m sure is not too big a surprise to anyone. Have you had any problems using twitter or apps with the bandwidth backlog London is experiencing? Looks like they were WAY underprepared for this kind of volume. I just like the Dish Remote Access app because I already had it, it works for the Olympics (I’m so busy that all I’m really interested in is coverage of the events), and I don’t have to can it after two weeks. Do you DVR? With my busy schedule I DVR a ton too, and I got my Hopper through Dish too. 2,000 hours of recording time sure comes in handy during mega-sporting events.
Hey, I was looking over your profile and wondered what “Lotus Notes Developer” was. Can you give me any info?