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The Associated Press has unveiled a dynamic multimedia platform for its coverage of the 2010 Winter Games that will showcase AP’s up-to-the-minute results, video reports, rich photos, athlete profiles, authoritative stats and a daily Webcast from Vancouver called “Beyond the Medal,” featuring snowboarder and reality TV personality Jesse Csincsak & Co Host Lila Merideth
The AP-hosted and ad-supported platform, found at http://wintergames.ap.org and on the Web sites of more than 900 AP member news organizations and broadcasters, will feature the journalistic efforts of the largest staff in Vancouver after the TV rights holder.
Users can sign up for e-mail alerts. The “all media module” at the top of the site, which includes AP news, photos and videos, can be embedded by members or readers in their blogs, Facebook pages or Web sites. Users can also enjoy the 16-by-9-inch format, a first for AP.
AP journalists have covered every Olympics since the Games were revived in 1896. As the 2010 Winter Games unfold, from Feb. 12 to 28, AP sports writers and other journalists will be providing text, video, radio, online and mobile reports from Vancouver to the news cooperative’s 1,500 member newspapers in the U.S., its thousands of member broadcast outlets and thousands of other customers worldwide.
“This platform makes it incredibly easy for readers to find and enjoy coverage of their favorite sports, their favorite athletes, and to linger over incredible photographs from today’s competitions and Games in the past,” said AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll.
Mike Lutzky, the global director of AP sports products, said: “Our Winter Games platform is an extension of the cooperative model, where we expand from simply providing content to packaging that content for the members’ benefit.”
The Web show “Beyond the Medal” will be updated throughout each day of competition to include the latest Olympics results, athlete interviews and segments about the social scene in Vancouver and Whistler, the ski resort hosting cross-country, downhill and luge competition. Debuting on Feb. 8, “Beyond the Medal” is cohosted by AP journalist Lila Ibrahim and Jesse Csincsak, a professional snowboarder and reality TV personality – who together will report and sample the action at and away from the Olympics venues.
A preview of “Beyond the Medal” is here.
“Beyond the Medal,” along with other video reports from the Olympics, will also be available through AP’s Online Video Network. Launched in 2006, the ad-supported OVN provides news videos to more than 2,000 newspaper, broadcast and other media Web sites throughout the United States.
In yet another display of AP’s expanding engagement with news audiences through social media, its sports writers are maintaining a special Winter Games Twitter feed, www.Twitter.com/AP_WinterGames, and a Facebook page, at www.facebook.com/APWinterGames.
“We’re excited to be using social networks to take readers behind the scenes, to hear what they are interested in and to put them in touch with the journalists who know so much about these sports and these Games,” Carroll added.
AP Mobile’s news app, now downloaded on more than 3 million smart phones, is featuring a subcategory of AP’s Olympics stories.
AP Radio will have three reporters at the Games to interview athletes, provide actualities for AP member stations and do live and taped reports for the network.
Follow the AP in Vancouver:
http://Wintergames.AP.org
www.Twitter.com/AP_WinterGames
www.facebook.com/APWinterGames
AP Mobile: APNews.com