Jeffrey Mann

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Jeffrey Mann
Research VP
14 years at Gartner
26 years IT industry

Jeffrey Mann is a research vice president for collaboration and social software at Gartner Research. Mr. Mann focuses on social software, team workspaces, the collaboration market and knowledge management. Read Full Bio

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"Watching" the World Cup, Line by Line

by Jeffrey Mann  |  July 6, 2010  |  1 Comment

Holland 0  – Uruguay 0
I have lived in Europe for over 25 years, so I know that I am supposed to be excited by football (the round ball kind). But sports generally don’t interest me very much. I can however generate some interest in the World Cup, mostly because it would take too much work to not be interested. It is simply unavoidable.

I know that at least half of the people I see tomorrow will want to talk about the Holland-Uruguay match, so I feel obliged to follow it at least a little bit. With no television in the house and a wonky broadband connection, my wife recommended the BBC Live Commentary. I also chanced across the New York Times feed, so decided to take a look at both.

Holland 1  – Uruguay 1
Both sites have similar setups, with a stream of updates coming from their reporters. The BBC also includes reader comments sent in by SMS and occasionally from Twitter (not very often though). BBC claims to update every 30 seconds, and NYT 15, but somehow the BBC seems to feel more current. The NYT site has more bells and whistles like a heat map areas of play and constantly updated statistics. The BBC shows some stats, but strangely shows Uruguay in orange, The Netherlands in green.

Holland 3  – Uruguay 1
One of the benefits of following a game this way is that the commentators’ howlers are more evident than when they are spoken. One minute before Oranje scores the second and 5 minutes before scoring their third, BBC Sports’s Chris Bevan has this to say:

“It’s just not happening for the Netherlands at the moment. … Maybe the Dutch have met their match?”

I guess not. This quick set of scores highlighted a nice feature on NYT: Vuvuzela blasts when someone scores. I could jump back from the emails I was working on to see what happened. While the BBC “feels” more up to date, NYT is the first to describe each goal.

Holland 3  – Uruguay 2
Maybe this still could get exciting.

Holland 3  – Uruguay 2
Not so much. The Netherlands in the final! Perhaps even playing arch rival Germany. Maybe this game is kind of cool. Now I have to find a television for Sunday, since I won’t be in Amsterdam.

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1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Calle Soccer   December 27, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    I loved this years world cup! it was amazing! so much excitement. I can’t wait for the next one.

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