It is often quoted that Chinese netizens spend more time on the Internet than they do watching TV, and that the first thing a young person buys for their new apartment is a computer to access the Internet, and not a T.V. So it’s not surprising to find, that when following the Olympics, netizens chose the Internet over all other media, including TV.

In the August issue of our IWOM watch, we tracked the different ways netizens experienced the “Internet Olympics”, including:

• Microblogging: #080808 twitter “hash tags”; updates & comments on Ji.wai.de and Fanfou
• Mobile: Google SMS updates
• Blogging: blogs from fans, athletes, journalists and celebrities perspective
• BBS: group watching and cheering

Case Study

Microblogging the Olympics one comment at a time
(微博客上体验激情奥运)

Summary

Three Chinese bloggers (Flypig, Webleon and Babechloe) started an Olympic meme on the well-known micro-blogging site Twitter. It’s called the #080808 tag campaign and its use spread dramatically. The concept of the campaign is quite simple – anyone who wants to show his or her support for the Games, just creates a little #080808 icon and then prelude all Olympic related message with an “#080808”.

Sohu, the official Olympics internet portal partner set up a “sohuolympic” ID on twitter that posts live updated news of all the games in progress. Whoever subscribes to the “sohuolympic” ID, receives frequent messages, allowing them to continuously stay up to date on all Olympic news.

Famous Chinese Microblogging sites Ji.Wai.de and Fanfou set up special Olympic live update sections on their sites, where users can easily find frequent Olympics news updates as well as other members’ Olympic posts, helping netizens enjoy the Olympic experience together.

Below is a screen shot of the index for the full IWOM watch report:

For related articles, please see below:

Pre-Olympic Buzz Analysis of Sponsors: Keyword Association Mapping of Chinese IWOM

IWOM Watch half year review: January - June, 2008

Tuning into Sports IWOM 2007 Q4: BBS vs. Twitter

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