[audio:https://sportsgeekhq.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HarfTimeSEATandOlympics-2.mp3|titles=Harf Time on #SEAT2012 & #London2012]

Download mp3

Twitter Medals – Day 4

Bronze Medal – Gary Linker

Gary defends Ian Thorpe's commentary style

See more

Ian Thorpe in tonight. The ‘look' at the start of his answers is not aggressive, it's an Aussie thing. Look, he's great and a Spurs fan

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) July 30, 2012

Silver Medal -Andrew Bogut

Clearly the trolls are out as to why he's not playing

See more

Amazed at the abusive tweets from people thinking I didn't want to go to the Olympics just because….???Yes, rather be on my couch. #morons

— Andrew Bogut (@AndrewMBogut) July 31, 2012

Gold Medal – Missy Franklin

Bieber or Gold Medal which do you think excited her more?

See more

“@justinbieber: heard @franklinmissy is a fan of mine. now im a fan of hers too. CONGRATS on winning GOLD! #muchlove” I just died! Thankyou!

— Missy Franklin (@FranklinMissy) July 31, 2012

#digifail Medal

Australia TV Channel 9 are getting a lot of flack on facebook for showing too much swimming do you agree?

See more

Major social media #fail by #channel9.3,848 comments, 91,000 likes and no response by 9…. yfrog.com/nuqi6ztj

— Stuart Sheridan (@stusheridan) July 31, 2012

Instagram Of The Day

The agony from South Korean Fencer Shin A Lam

From Google+

 

Keep those nominations coming in

Each day we’ll update you with best sports digital news, tweets & pictures from #London2012.

Also tune into @ABCGrandstand each morning to hear Sean give you the latest update from #London2012.

Send a tweet to me @amcal or @SportsGeekHQ if you see something we should add.
Sign up to Sports Geek News to stay in touch with the sports digital world.

Get the Sports Geek podcasts

Want to get these clips in podcast form? Subscribe here or Add to iTunes

Podcast transcription

HARF: Twelve minutes to 3 o’clock on HarfTime. Michael Warcello telling us – off Twitter, eight Olympic badminton players charged with tanking (not using ones best efforts to win a match) I hope Andrew Demetriou was in the crowd, says off Twitter. Thank you Michael. Speaking of Twitter our sports digital media guru, Sean Callanan joins us @seancallanan on Twitter or @sportsGeekHQ for the real action, that’s where the real action’s @sportsgeekhq. Good day Sean.

SEAN: Good day Harf, how you doing?

HARF: Going very well, you Olympic fevered?

SEAN: Yeah a little bit – little bit. Keeping an eye on it, checking Twitter for results and – – –

HARF: Checking Twitter for tweets – may be some tweets that shouldn’t be there and people getting kicked off.

SEAN: Yeah there’s been a few of those and did talk about it last week, someone got knocked off the team before the Games started, so we thought it might of happened in the Opening Ceremony. It was actually good to see, from an Opening Ceremony point of view that they did clean up the WiFi and they obviously had enough access because there was plenty of material coming out of the stadium.

HARF: Was there, I didn’t see them, bit unusual.

SEAN: You know so a great – so a great job there by the tech guys behind the stadium to actually have access, you know, because normally we’d pull out our phone at the MCG at 80,000 people and- – —

HARF: It don’t work.

SEAN: – – – and it just – it may as well be a brick, you know, because you can’t tweet from it so yeah you may as well just take a cardboard look alike of your phone because it has the same effect, but the technology is getting better and whatever they’ve done at London, definitely a lot of different people, will be looking at – and I’ll be looking at next week at SEAT Conference as well.

HARF: What is SEAT Conference?

SEAN: So SEAT, it stands for Sports Entertainment Alliance and Technology, so it’s right in SportsGeek’s wheelhouse.

HARF: Right, we must like that, in the wheelhouse.

SEAN: Yeah in the wheelhouse it’s one of the terms they love using the US – – –

HARF: I love that.

SEAN: – – – so we’re going to chuck it in the wheelhouse. So it’s all sports and techs, so it’s all the tech guys working for sports teams to try to solve some of these problems in the stadiums and making sure the infrastructure’s there and then also then there’s the marketing guys of being able to get the sponsors and get the fans engaged and all that type of stuff, so – – –

HARF: So where is this SEAT Conference is it Ballarat or Adelaide?

SEAN: This is not Ballarat this will be in Boston.

HARF: Oh close.

SEAN: So yeah close – close to Ballarat.

HARF: It’s a junket isn’t it?

SEAN: It is a bit of a Sports Geek trip; put it on the hash tag.

HARF: Boston nice.

SEAN: Yeah so Boston, we’ll get a bit of a tour of Fenway Park, look at the Boston Garden, look at the tech behind it, but also talk to some of the guys. I’ll be – I’m lucky enough to be running a panel, I’ve got Lou Imbraino who is the Chief – former Chief marketing officer of the New England Patriots – – –

HARF: Oh cool.

SEAN: – – so you can follow him on Twitter, Lou Imbriano, I’ve also got Laura King who works for the sports entertainment division of Twitter, her Twitter handle is you know, you get a nice short handle when you’re at Twitter, LK, you don’t have to worry about long names, just get the – just the two letter Twitter handle.

HARF: So what does – what does – what’s her role entail? I’d like to know what her role.

SEAN: Yeah so what her role is, is helping sports teams develop and use Twitter as a platform. So what we’ve seen and we did talk about at the NASCAR search page, that did the aggregation and sort of showed the whole event, they’re currently doing something now with the – the Olympics and with partnering NBC, unfortunately we can’t see it here, it’s only available in the States, but sort of that curating and allowing fans to find you know different tweets and – and promote certain tweets, and try to move into that monetising of Twitter with advertising and different types of things. But they know that Twitter in sports is just a terrific marriage. You know we see that with Twitter now, you know you’re trying to watch the game and you’re sitting there in bed watching a game on your iPad or on Foxtel if you’re lucky, or complaining about Channel 9 if you’re not. But you can see all the tweets coming by and it’s effectively the secondary colour commentator, you know you’ve got your colour commentator in the booth, but you’ve also you know Twitter is effectively the third colour commentator that’s providing that extra experience.

HARF: Yeah okay, good stuff.

SEAN: So that will be one of the things up for discussion at SEAT is you know fixing things like WiFi in stadium and those kind of things. And you know what they’ve done in the Olympics they’ve actually done it so well, and that’s the problem, as you expand the ability to do it, more people want to do it, we’ve all got Smartphones we want to keep doing it, so much so that they’ve done such a good job in Britain there’s just so much texting and tweeting it’s effecting the TV coverage.

HARF: Is that right.

SEAN: Not – not people watching it.

HARF: Just the signal.

SEAN: The signal they had trouble getting the signal out during the cycling and road races because so many people were taking out their phones, taking pictures, texting, tweeting, and that was you know it was jamming the TV signal so they’ve had to actually say you know people you know everyone at the Olympic Games you’re loving the social Olympics, but we just need you to dial it down a bit, so the TV signal can actually get out.

HARF: That’s amazing. That is amazing, not surprised by the way but it is amazing. What about for you, I’ve got a mission for you when you’re over at the SEAT Conference in Boston.

SEAN: Yep.

HARF: I want you to get whoever’s in charge of – on behalf of SCN listeners, I want you to get that person who is in charge of the WiFi access – – –

SEAN: Yes

HARF: – – – and getting that technology up to date for the Olympic Stadium.

SEAN: So that would be Roger Bar.

HARF: You get Roger Bar back here please before the finals at the MCG.

SEAN: Oh okay well he’s busy.

HARF: You get him back here I want him to fix the system.

SEAN: He’s busy for the next two weeks.

HARF: Well I know but the finals are another five weeks away, so that’s all right. So get him back here, we need to have this fixed before the finals.

SEAN: Yeah and you know it is part of the experience and it’s – it’s a bit of a – it’s a who’s problem is it, and that’s the you know – – –

HARF: Telstra at the minute.

SEAN: Is it a Telstra/Optus problem in that they have to provide more – more towers? Is it a stadium problem? Is it something that they have to provide because you’re walking in there. And then once it all, you know or is it the league that’s bringing all the fans, is it their problem and then it comes down to who pays. And so that’s the other issue, so the other stadium that I’m going to go to after going to Boston because it is a SportsGeek trip/junket, is San Francisco, so I’ll be going to AT&T Park. And so AT&T Park is known, pretty much worldwide, as the most connected WiFied and you know San Francisco is a pretty connected city as far as being having access to WiFi pretty much everywhere, but you know it’s one of the parks where you can sit at the game, watch the game, send out an instagram, send out a tweet and not have any problems. And they’ve been doing that for six or seven years, going from little bits of paid WiFi where you’d pay for your access to free WiFi from you know from sponsors and things like that. So that kind – that kind of infrastructure and yeah you can’t have the naming rights of the – of the stadium and then have poor coverage, which is you know probably a good move for it no longer to be called Telstra Stadium or Telstra Dome.

HARF: Correct, well played by you. Well played by you. So it’s the right field fence at AT&T that goes into the water isn’t it?

SEAN: Yes Cubby Cove yes.

HARF: Cubby Cove right I want you to hit one to Cubby Cove for me.

SEAN: You want me to hit one or just take a shot.

HARF: No, no I want you to hit one.

SEAN: All right I’ll see if I can get a tour – – –

HARF: Just do it mate, just get to the mound, the plate and hit it man.

SEAN: Well if they don’t have that $7,000 fine that we have at the MCG if it’s – I’ll just put sportsgeekHQ.com on my back and just run across the field is that what you’re suggesting?

HARF: Somebody will pay for that. I’m also blaming you for Emily Seebohm’s silver medal with her Twitter addiction.

SEAN: No that’s – that’s completely ridiculous but it is.

HARF: No I’m blaming you.

SEAN: Now you can’t because that’s just like telling people they can’t read papers and those kind of things, it’s always been some of the magic. One other thing is that athletes are – you know they don’t realise what kind of response they’re getting and they’re not used to it like say an AFL footballers getting week in week out.

HARF: I’ll talk to you after I’m finished is what she should of said. Thank you Sean have a great trip, we’ll chat to you next week.