Agence France-Presse (AFP) and China.com Corp. (CCC) announced their agreement to launch a Chinese language Olympic Games Web site on China.com’s portal network including China.com, Hongkong.com, Taiwan.com, and China Wide Web.
“We are delighted to be working with CCC on the worlds biggest sporting event and to be announcing this agreement in a country with possibly the largest audience of sports lovers,” Pierre Lesourd, regional director for the Asia-Pacific, said.
“We are delighted to be participating with a world-class media organization the caliber of AFP, and leveraging on advanced multimedia Internet technology, to bring the most comprehensive coverage available on the Olympic Games to the Chinese language audience,” said Peter Yip, CCC’s vice-chairman.
China.com is a unit of China Internet Corp. which is looking to list on NASDAQ in the next few weeks.
The event coverage partnership is the third between AFP and CCC. The two organizations also worked together on the Web during last summer’s World Cup and the Asian Games.
According to China.com’s representatives, China Wide Web’s 1998 bilingual World Cup site in China generated more than a million page views per day.
Under the agreement, AFP and CCC will provide news and pictorial coverage of the Olympic Games taking place in Sydney from 15 September until 1 October 2000.
The Chinese language site will include comprehensive news and information on the host and participating countries, community features such as polls and message boards, a gallery of sports pictures, Olympic Games history, as well as details on daily events and participating athletes.
Lesourd said that AFP would deploy more than 100 journalists and photographers to cover the Games. We will provide round-the-clock, saturation coverage to satisfy any diehard sports surfer on the Net.”
