In the little world I inhabit, all the people spent the weekend watching the Olympics. From the opening ceremonies Friday through the last showings we could catch Sunday and still get enough sleep to get into work on time. Tired, sleepy-eyed but on time.
The medal fever mounted as the weekend wore on, and, by the time the gymnastics were broadcast, everyone was hoping and praying the U.S. would win. Put it this way: Nachos were the staple in our diet, and nobody even wanted to get a fresh bag or another beer in case we missed something.
There’s another way to do this, of course, one that is not quite so hard on the stomach, and still lets you get a good idea of how we’re doing at the Olympics now, and compare the results with how we did at the 2004 Games.
You can get statistics on the Internet, live and in real time, here. There are four dashboards, two showing 2004 Games results and the other two this 2008 Beijing Games results, the latter live and in real time.
In the spirit of the Olympics, Shadan Malik , president and CEO of iDashboards, which put up the site, decided to use his company’s business intelligence software for a little bit of fun. “The Olympics spirit is strong around here,” he told InternetNews.com.
The four dashboards will be paired off. Each pair will have one dashboard showing 2004 results and the other showing 2008 results so viewers can get a side by side comparison of results.
One pair of dashboards will each show a scorecard and maps of countries, listing how many gold medals they won.
The other pair will each have a map of the world with the countries color coded. TO see any country’s medal tallies, just position your cursor over it. The medal tallies will be broken down by type — gold, silver and bronze.
Figures for this year’s games are in real time, of course. Happy viewing.
