NBC and Adobe team up for two Olympics apps

Apps will allow streaming of every Olympic event, plus highlights and schedules

The Olympics are a time when everyone, whatever country they are from, are supposed to feel national pride in their athletes. So what if a player on the team you hate is on you’re the Olympic team? You’re not rooting for them, or even the team they play for. You are rooting for your country.

And now NBC, in partnership with Adode, is going let people show their pride wherever they go with the announcement of two new apps.

The first app, called Olympics Live Extra, will allow customers on satellite, cable and telephone companies to stream every event and every medal ceremony, adding up to over 3,500 hours of coverage in 32 sports.

The second app, called NBC Olympics, acts as a compliment to the first app, providing addition content, such as schedules and highlights.

NBC had previously announced its intention to stream every moment of the Olympics back in May.

Both apps were built and powered by Adobe. They will be on some Android tablets within Google Play, and on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

“It’s been great working with NBC Olympics to change the way live sporting events are experienced by consumers. NBC is now able to create, deliver, monetize and measure the Olympics across mobile devices – using tools and technologies that make up Adobe’s video solutions.” David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Digital Media Business for Adobe, said in a statement.

“We’re working closely with NBC Olympics and others to ensure viewers have a seamless viewing experience with two easy-to-navigate apps.”

NBC used Adobe tools, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Flash Builder and Flex, to create the apps and Adobe's “TV Everywhere” authentication service to allow customers with cable and sattelite to have easy access to the live streaming content.

In addition, NBC is also using Adobe to monetize them, Jeremy Helfand is the vice president of Video Monetization at Adobe, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.

“Advertising onto mobile devices will be served via Adobe Auditude, our video ad management and monetization platform, which is used by major brands worldwide like Comcast, Major League Baseball, Fox News, E! Entertainment, Dailymotion and others. Auditude will work in conjunction with other existing NBC ad serving systems,” Helfand wrote.

NBC has also partnered with Facebook to launch an official Facebook Olympics page, featuring over  200 athlete profiles.

NBC Olympics and Facebook will work together to produce social media segments to air during television broadcasts across various NBC Universal networks and implement a data tool called the "Talk Meter" to inform its viewers about the stories, results, athletes, and events that are appearing on the social network.

Other Olympics apps

NBC is not the only one using the Olympics to create new content for users.

Facebook has previously announced its own app tying into the Olympics, called HealthyShare, through a partnership with GE.

The app is meant to get people exercising during the 17 day Olympic games by having them set goals, track their progress, share their goals with their friends, and have their friends encourage them.

It gives users three different options to choose from, including the Work Out Like an Olympian path, which gives users the workout routines of basketball player Kevin Durant, soccer player Alex Morgan, track star Michael Johnson and swimmer Summer Sanders.

The Olympic games will be held in London from July 27 through August 12.

NBC and Adobe have released this video to promote the new apps: 

(Image source: mkv25.net)