The summer of sports keeps going on online

The summer of sports keeps going on online

The summer of Sports just keeps going on. After Roland Garros, the European Football Championships and Wimbledon it is now the Tour de France. "La grande boucle’ is drive for the 95th time. The first time around was organized by the newspaper LeMonde. That was also the way we were informed of the progress of the riders: through the newspaper, a day after the actual events.

The communication has heavily-evolved over the past decades. From the newspaper we went to the radio and television and now on to the Internet.

Where we previously depended on the radio-reports by (the two weeks ago unfortunately too early deceased) Jacques Chapel or on television in the late afternoon, now we can find everything through the Internet. Live and through various channels. You do not really have to miss anything. In particular, the NOS ensures that you are updates everywhere and always.

Website

Let us start with the Website of the NOS. http://tour2008.nos.nl/ This site is in itself quite complete. Of course you can find news about the Tour, and you can see the stage-schedules and all rankings.

The really interesting part is the tab "Your Tour". Here you can get send in your own Tourvideo (which may be used in the evening tv-show by Mart Smeets), there is a question that can be asked at NOS Tourradio and you can vote on your favorite moment in Tour history.

The NOS also offers live information on the course. That you can vie on the website of the NOS, but you can also place a ‘widget’ in your personal environment (Hyves or a personal blog).

Example of the widget of the NOS

It of course remains the best to see streams of the course itself. At the site of the NOS http://tour2008.nos.nl/live/index you can follow the course live if you do not have a television. Unfortunately you cannot like last year ‘take the stream’ to your own blog or website.

Mobile
Are you on the road and do you not have your laptop connected to the Internet but you do have mobile Internet? Even then you can follow the course. Of course via (Web) radio, but also through NOS Mobile. This is an application you can download on your cellphone (if you have a suitable device). You can then stay up to date through the live updates, but you can even see a live stream on your phone. Please note that you have a subscription with unlimited Internet use, otherwise it wil cost you loads of money.

Twitter
There are other ways to use the Web to keep informed of the Tour. So did the NOS a separate Twitteraccount who send messages during the race on the track.

YouTube
Finally YouTube. There are obviously many movies to be found of finishes of the stages of the Tour, but the organization has also launched its own YouTube Channel where you can watch the live stage, see summaries and interviews. Very entertaining.

All these things are just a sampling of all possible sites where you may follow the Tour de France. This summer you do not necessarily have to be behind your television or radio to follow sports.

I am curious as to what forms the Olympic Games we will be covered.