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I found this interesting — yet another example of social media being considered a viable facet of a marketing strategy.

Lenovo has sponsored this portal for athlete bloggers at the Olympics.

The site is well designed. Lots of bloggers writing content. Some local representation. A Twitter feed. And, an interesting approach. Seems like the site aggregates content from athletes’ personal blogs and Flickr feeds and then tosses in the Twitter stream as a content promotion tool and personality behind the portal. I like it. You’ll notice, browsing around, that every post links back to “original article”. Any theories?

Now. The gold-medal question. Is it successful? A total of 207 Twitter followers. Hmm. That’s not the only measure. Wonder what the traffic has been like?

Background info from the press release, if you’re interested:

Lenovo is a worldwide partner of the Olympic Games and the Olympic torch relay, providing more than 30 000 pieces of computing equipment to manage the operations of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Athletes also will be able to use Lenovo internet lounges inside the Olympic Village, using PCs to maintain blogs, do email and surf the internet.

Until 2008, athletes were allowed to write blogs only until the opening day of the Olympic Games and could then resume their blogs after the conclusion of the Games. This year, new regulations from the International Olympic Committee enable athletes to write blogs about their experiences off the field of play during the actual 17 days of competition.

“The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have created the first truly Web 2.0 experience, one in which athletes, fans, supporters and television viewers interact and collaborate over the internet,” said Deepak Advani, Lenovo senior vice president and chief marketing officer. “We want to provide personal computing technology that helps athletes engage with a global community that cares passionately about competition, training, and the kinds of experiences that have gone unheralded until now. We want to help athletes achieve their dreams and share those dreams with the world.”

Let me know your thoughts …




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Andy Hadfield is a digital native (can’t remember life without the Internet) and is fascinated with the impact it is having on our lives and businesses. An entertaining and compelling personality, Andy speaks with authority and insight about the new shape of life, work and play in the digital world.

Importantly though, he’s not a “techie”! Andy understands the hard realities of business, and delivers pragmatic, realistic lessons from the future, which every business will find valuable. His intensive front-line experience underpins these viewpoints.

He has played in every corner of the digital industry, launching his first startup at age 19 - getALife (gAL) was a social network before the word was even invented. The site was a political and community mouthpiece for South African students between 1997 and 2005 and was covered on every major media platform, including Time Magazine. It also has the dubious honour of being sued by Robert Mugabe.

He then spent the next 7 years honing his strategic skills across a range of industries, including finance, professional services, construction and media. With The Virtual Works, this included building the digital platform that underpins “The Deloitte Way”, a real time strategic assessment, staff engagement and reward programme. He was also involved in creating Africa’s first monetised niche social network (www.designmind.co.za) which drives communication and collaboration across the construction industry.

At First National Bank, Andy helped develop a team to manage digital strategy across the consumer banking segment. This included projects such as corporate crowdsourcing, the bank's first official FaceBook presence, a major overhaul of www.fnb.co.za and a world-class “Amazon-style” online sales system for financial products.

Since 2010, he founded and operates www.OneBigWidget.com, a boutique strategic consultancy and stable of pioneering digital projects. You can find him on www.andyhadfield.com or tweeting his love for cricket, wine and the new style of business on www.twitter.com/andyhadfield.
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