Why watch The Masters on your television?
The golf fans among us have already tuned into The Masters -- but not on our televisions. This year's online live Masters console at Masters.com is a high-resolution full-broadcast, with components that allow you to watch multiple holes simultaneously, pull up the leaderboard, track your favorite players (in real-time or via alerts), or watch bonus & recap footage. Granted, much of this was available on the Masters web site in previous years, but never fully integrated into one experience.
Given the site is "powered by IBM" -- I'm speculating about the collection of technologies driving it. As readers of our Digital & Media Asset Management Report know, IBM has historically paired FileNet and Ancept Media Server in similar scenarios. The front end is fluid and usable, likely driven by Adobe Flex or AJAX. But when I dig deeper, clicking on the IBM logo in the video console, a flashy IBM dashboard comes up, primed to play more video (hosted by the white-label video management and publishing service, The Platform) all I get is a friendly voice that says, "This content is currently unavailable." Oops. It appears, unlike Tiger, IBM wasn't quite fully ready for this first Major of the season....