The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games digital report highlights substantial online engagement, with 431 million total visits and significant mobile app downloads. The digital strategy aimed to be the most visited games-time website, achieving user-friendly accessibility across diverse audiences and utilizing strong search engine optimization and social media integration. The report emphasizes the importance of live updates and comprehensive athlete information in enhancing user experience during the events.

1. London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games-time
Digital Report
August 13 2012
Alex Balfour
Head of New Media, London 2012
@alexbalfour2012

2. Summary: London2012.com in 140 characters
Final Olympic online totals 431m visits,
109m unique users, 15m app
downloads, 4.73bn page views, 4.7m
social followers #London2012.com

3. Summary: London2012.com in 140 characters
(for the geeks)
Final Olympic online totals 1.3PB of
data served,117 Billion object requests,
46.1bn „page‟ (html,htmx) views, App
peak of 17,290 pages per second, web
of 104,792 pages per second
#London2012.com

4. Summary: London2012.com in 140 characters
Final Paralympic online totals: 30m
visits, 9.5m unique users, 5.8m app
upgrades, 220m page views
#London2012.com

5. Agenda
Agenda
The context
Our Games-time ambition
Our achievement

6. The Games –scale
• 204 Olympic teams; 164 Paralympic
• 10,490 Olympic athletes; 4,200 Paralympic
• 20,000 media
• 70,000 volunteers
• 200,000 Games-time workforce
• 11 million tickets
• 170+ venues
• 26 Olympic Sports, 20 Paralympic
• Over 800 events leading to medals
6

7. Agenda
Agenda
6 July 2005
London wins the right to
Journey to 2012 video
stage the Games

8. That was then: Broadband reach in the UK in 2005

9. That was then: 3g penetration in the UK in 2005

10. That was then: Social media in the UK in 2005

11. 2010: Digital by default
• By 2010 majority of pop. in UK and many other nations had access to broadband
• London 2012 consumer transactions become digital by default.
• The new media team commissioned and managed, in whole or part, 77 digital
products, sites or services in 6 years including:
London2012.com, Get Set (education site), School leavers site, Pre-Games training camp
venue site, velodream competition, Gamesmaker (volunteer) site and sign up platform (with
Atos), Torch relay site and map, Torch relay nominations platform, London Prepares site,
Memorabilia auction site, Online shop (with ecommera), Mobile site, Recruitment sites (ODA
and LOCOG), Local leaders site, Event database and front end site, Mascots site, Learning
legacy site, Festival 2012 site, #1yeartogo Twitter visualisation, Young Gamesmaker site,
Ticket sign up, Ticketing site (front end html only), Open weekend site, Travel advice for
business, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Google Plus, Flickr accounts, “Join In” App on 3
platforms...
11 10/09/2012

12. 2012: Social and mobile on the march
2.7bn social media accounts worldwide by start of 2012
12 10/09/2012 zurmat.com

13. 2012: Social and mobile on the march
France UK Germany Italy India**
SP: 66% SP: 61% SP: 67% SP: 62% SP: 10%
Tablets: 15% Tablets: 17% Tablets: 12% Tablets: 15% Tablets: 1%
Source: Nielsen, Q3 2011
SP: smartphone penetration among mobile phone users (in major metros for Thailand & Indonesia)
Source: Nielsen Smartphone Insights, Q2 2012

14. 2012: Social and mobile on the march - UK
– Smartphone penetration in United Kingdom is 61%
61%
Base: All Qualified Respondents (n=1025) Base: All Mobile Phone Users - regarding the phone most often used (n=1607)
Q6 Do you currently use a mobile phone
Q7 Which brand of mobile phone do you currently use? If you won more than one mobile phone, please response for your primary mobile phone, meaning the phone which you
use most often.
Q8 Now, we’d like you to identify the model of your [brand] mobile phone. You may use these images to help you.
Q144 (For undetermined model) May I know if your current primary mobile phone has the following features> Touch screen, QWERTY keypad, Able to do any application
installation and usage, able to connect to internet

15. 2012: Social and mobile on the march – second screen
Clay Shirky,
Here comes everybody
15
17th November 2009

16. Agenda
Agenda
The context
Our Games-time ambition
Our achievement

17. Our Games-time online ambition Back then
mobile
seemed
We set out a vision in 2010 To be the most visited Gamestime website ever secondary!
comprising:
1. Ultimate authority on the Games with comprehensive, unbiased provision of
results;
2. A 'sense of live' that provides greater access to the event wherever the user
is;
3. Appealing to all audiences, irrespective of location, ability, age, background,
and level of sporting knowledge;
4. Encouraging people to interact and engage with the inspiring stories of the
Games.
5. Generate revenue (target confidential, sorry chaps)

18. Agenda
Agenda
The context
Our Games-time ambition
Our achievement

19. 
Our Games-time online ambition
We set out a vision in 2010 To be the most visited Games-time website ever
comprising:
1. Ultimate authority on the Games with comprehensive, unbiased provision of
results;
2. A 'sense of live' that provides greater access to the event wherever the user
is;
3. Appealing to all audiences, irrespective of location, ability, age, background,
and level of sporting knowledge;
4. Encouraging people to interact and engage with the inspiring stories of the
Games.
5. Generate revenue (target confidential, sorry chaps)

20. London 2012 website traffic: 2010, 11, 12. Not bad but...
Source: Google Analytics

21. Games-time traffic: Most visited Games-time channels ever
• 432m total visits from 109m unique users across web and mobile
• 60% of visits from mobile devices
35
Millions
30
25 Total Visits
20 Of which through mobile devices
15
10
5
0
01 Jul 08 Jul 15 Jul 22 Jul 29 Jul 05 Aug 12 Aug

22. Games-time traffic: Most visited Games-time channels ever
• 432m total visits from 109m unique users across web and mobile
• 0% of visits from mobile devices
35
Millions
30
25 Total Visits
20 Of which through mobile devices
15
10
5
0
01 Jul 08 Jul 15 Jul 22 Jul 29 Jul 05 Aug 12 Aug

23. 1000000
2000000
3000000
4000000
5000000
6000000
7000000
8000000
0
13/08/2012
14/08/2012
15/08/2012
16/08/2012
17/08/2012
18/08/2012
19/08/2012
20/08/2012
21/08/2012
22/08/2012
23/08/2012
24/08/2012
25/08/2012
• 52% of visits from mobile devices
26/08/2012
27/08/2012
28/08/2012
29/08/2012
30/08/2012
31/08/2012
Start of
Games
01/09/2012
Paralympic
02/09/2012
03/09/2012
04/09/2012
05/09/2012
06/09/2012
07/09/2012
• 30m total visits from 9.5m unique users across web and mobile
08/09/2012
09/09/2012
Visits
Games-time traffic: Most visited Games-time channels ever

24. Games-time traffic: Mobile app downloads (cumulative)
15m mobile application downloads, #1 ranking in 7 countries
20
Millions
15
Official London 2012 Results App
10
Official London 2012 Join In App
5
0
01-Jul 08-Jul 15-Jul 22-Jul 29-Jul 05-Aug

25. Games-time traffic: Mobile app downloads (cumulative)
5.8m upgrades to Paralympic versions of both Apps
15
Millions
Official London 2012 Join In App
Official London 2012 Results App
Paralympic upgrades
10
5
0

26. Games-time traffic: by hour of the day weekend
1,400,000
Sunday 5th August
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
Desktop
600,000 Mobile
400,000
200,000
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

27. Games-time traffic: by hour of day weekday
800,000
Wednesday 8th August
700,000
600,000
500,000
Desktop
400,000 Mobile web
Apps (phone)
300,000 Apps (tablet)
200,000
100,000
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

28. Games-time traffic: how we built it – organic SEO We optimised
against the 1700
most searched
Olympic terms for 2
years
Rank 1 implies the
first return on a
search engine
results page, 2 the
second and so on.
The lower number
the better

29. Games-time traffic: how we built it – organic SEO (US)

30. Games-time traffic: how we built it – organic SEO
66% of our web
traffic came
from search
during Games

31. Games-time traffic: how we built it – relationships
10 Google doodles in 16 days

32. Games-time traffic: how we built it – relationships
Our SEO was strong
but we estimate a
5% of traffic came
from Google
“knowledge panels”
and the doodle

33. Games-time traffic: how we built it – relationships Facebook’s page
finder for the Games
Facebook was our top referring traffic source after search drove traffic as did
integration of Open
Graph and like
buttons (see later)

34. Games-time traffic: how we built it – relationships
App store promotion by arrangement with all app stores was key

35. 
Our Games-time online ambition
We set out a vision in 2010 To be the most visited Games-time website ever

comprising:
1. Ultimate authority on the Games with comprehensive, unbiased provision of
results;
2. A 'sense of live' that provides greater access to the event wherever the user
is;
3. Appealing to all audiences, irrespective of
location, ability, age, background, and level of sporting knowledge;
4. Encouraging people to interact and engage with the inspiring stories of the
Games.
5. Generate revenue (target confidential, sorry chaps)

36. Ultimate authority
• No rights to video - huge focus on what
works best on the web:
schedules, medals, results and
complementing TV viewing
• Live results from 7,000 heats or phases
• Country pages for 205 nations
• Profile pages for 10,490 athletes
• 5,000 images and 100 stories a day
• 15,000 non-sport events
• 1,043 torch community runs mapped, 8,000
torch bearer profiles even including twitter
36 10/09/2012
accounts

37. Ultimate authority – schedules
Unique schedules sortable any which way you choose

38. Ultimate authority – schedules
Unique sortable schedules on mobile and tablet too

39. Ultimate authority – medals, athletes, countries
Every athlete, every medal, every which way

40. Ultimate authority – top Olympic athlete profiles
Most popular athlete profile pages (TOTAL: 10,490 athletes, 106m page views)
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000
0

41. Ultimate authority – top Paralympic athlete profiles
Most popular athlete profile pages (TOTAL: 4,200 athletes, 6.2m page views)
140000
120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
20000
0

42. Ultimate authority - maps
• Detailed desktop and app maps of all venues
and zoom down to seating level
• Custom branded pins for over 15,000 events
• Augmented reality and cgi venue tours on
mobile
• Dedicated desktop and mobile journey
planner
• Social check ins, top tips, venue histories,
weather forecasts
• Dedicated bespoke online journey planners –
busiest at 9-10pm night before events (despite
entreaties to pre-plan!)

43. Ultimate authority – non-sport events
15,000 events across London 2012 Festival, Partners and others

44. Ultimate authority – torch relay
10m unique visitors looked at Torch content, 25% saw the map
Twitter details
for many
torchbearers and
direct tweeting
from the app

45. 
Our Games-time online ambition
We set out a vision in 2010 To be the most visited Games-time website ever

comprising:

1. Ultimate authority on the Games with comprehensive, unbiased provision of
results;
2. A 'sense of live' that provides greater access to the event wherever the user
is;
3. Appealing to all audiences, irrespective of
location, ability, age, background, and level of sporting knowledge;
4. Encouraging people to interact and engage with the inspiring stories of the
Games.
5. Generate revenue (target confidential, sorry chaps)

46. Sense of live
Live notifications on web
Athletes
Live events drop competing today
down at top of on every
every page of the country/team
site page
Pop up “sticky bar”
at the bottom of
every page with live
results and
customisable
elements

47. Sense of live
Bespoke real time and rich web scoreboards for every one of 302 events

48. Sense of live
Real time results and live torch tracking on Results and Join In apps
Live torch GPS and
live video on the
website too
Voice of the Games
summarises latest
action and social
media activity

49. 
Our Games-time online ambition
We set out a vision in 2010 To be the most visited Games-time website ever

comprising:

1. Ultimate authority on the Games with comprehensive, unbiased provision of
results;

2. A 'sense of live' that provides greater access to the event wherever the user
is;
3. Appealing to all audiences, irrespective of
location, ability, age, background, and level of sporting knowledge;
4. Encouraging people to interact and engage with the inspiring stories of the
Games.
5. Generate revenue (target confidential, sorry chaps)

50. Appealing to all audiences - reach
Truly global reach Top visiting countries (web)
• People from 201 territories countries
United States
visited the website
United Kingdom
Canada
• People from 155 countries used our apps France
Australia
• 40% of all online Britons visited the web India
site as did 29% of all online New Germany
Zealanders, 19% of all online South Korea
Canadians, 12% of all online Americans# Spain
Italy
Malaysia
• Paralympics : 50% of visits from
Mexico
UK, 7.43% US, 4.88% Aus, 3.2% France

51. Appealing to all audiences - retention
They came, they stayed
• Average Olympic visit times/page views per visit (ppv):
• Web: 8 min 34s average visit time / 8.26 ppv (5m6s/ 6.89ppv Paralympics)
• Apps (mobile): 23 ppv
• Apps (tablet): 29 ppv
• 4+ star ratings for both Apps across all platforms and thousands of positive reviews
“just like the Olympics as a whole, BRILLIANT!”
“oh so good”
“great stuff. Essential”
“great app. Even I can use it”
“Brilliant app I used to inform my TV viewing”

52. Appealing to all audiences – true accessibility
Beyond numbers
We considered the needs of:
• People with visual, hearing or motor impairments;
• People with cognitive impairments;
• People with reading difficulties such as dyslexia;
• People whose mother tongue is not English;
• People from different cultural, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds;
• People from different generations.
We have followed these broad principles over the last six years:
1. Providing help in using the site.
2. Designing for use with assistive technologies: ensuring that our media work well with
technologies such as software that reads pages aloud.
3. Following standards: London 2012 websites comply with accessibility standards including
the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative.
4. Testing: we have worked with specialist accessibility and usability consultancies and real
users to ensure that problems are identified and solutions developed.

53. Appealing to all audiences – true accessibility
We committed to:
1. Ensuring compliance with WCAG 2.0 A and achieving AA+ accessibility
2. Providing alternative content formats – Easy Read and BSL versions of the site
3. Providing help and guidance in using the site
4. Testing with specialist usability and accessibility consultants and real users
5. Using Plain English throughout
6. Ensuring a non-partisan site which respects and values all teams and athletes
equally (no TeamGB bias)

54. Appealing to all audiences – user testing
Over 2000 hours of user testing with real users

55. Appealing to all audiences - alternative formats
1. Stylesheet switching (Dyslexic and high visibility options)
2. Font resizing
3. Skip to content / skip to section navigation link
4. Links to British Sign Language and Easy Read sites
5. Keyboard shortcuts / skip keys based on common usage
6. Direct link in header to accessibility advice

56. Appealing to all audiences - alternative formats
Stylesheet switching: dyslexic view

57. Appealing to all audiences - alternative formats
Font size increasing

58. Appealing to all audiences - alternative formats
Alternative content formats: Easy Read

59. Appealing to all audiences - alternative formats
Easy Read summaries during Games

60. Appealing to all audiences - alternative formats
Alternative content formats: daily highlights summaries during the Games

61. Appealing to all audiences - alternative formats
Video content with captions and transcripts

62. Appealing to all audiences - accessibility
Accessibility information section

63. 
Our Games-time online ambition
We set out a vision in 2010 To be the most visited Games-time website ever

comprising:

1. Ultimate authority on the Games with comprehensive, unbiased provision of
results;

2. A 'sense of live' that provides greater access to the event wherever the user
is;
3. Appealing to all audiences, irrespective of

location, ability, age, background, and level of sporting knowledge;
4. Encouraging people to interact and engage with the inspiring stories of the
Games.
5. Generate revenue (target confidential, sorry chaps)

64. Interact and engage: social media followers
4.7m social media followers
5
4
Foursquare
Millions
3
Google+
2 Twitter
1 Facebook
0
01-Jul 08-Jul 15-Jul 22-Jul 29-Jul 05-Aug 12-Aug
Source: Google Analytics

65. Interact and engage: Facebook
• 1.86 m Facebook likes, 8 Facebook accounts
• London 2012 content reached 49m facebook
users at peak, 43% under 24
• 100m+ likes across all Olympic athlete and
team pages according to Facebook
• Full open graph integration with celebrate and
support buttons on site – 200k users logged in
with their Facebook credentials with 1.4% click
thrus from their posts back to London2012.com
•We provided an experimental feed into
Facebook so 100 athletes could feed their
results onto their pages

66. Interact and engage: Twitter
• 1.9 m Twitter followers -150m tweets
About the games (acc to Twitter)
• 48 Twitter accounts:
• 36 sport accounts with live feeds
• 2 mascot accounts
• 6 twitter cameras with personality:
@L2012BballCam
@L2012GymCam
@L2012TableCam
@L2012StadiumCam
@L2012MatCam
@L2012PoolCam
• Visualisations:
•Olympic and Ceremony Pulse
• #supportyourteam

67. Interact and engage: Twitter – london2012.com/olympicpulse
Live tweets from across 40 venues and during ceremonies

68. Interact and engage: Twitter – #supportyourteam
1.55m tweets for 204 teams on desktop and mobile, and 50k for Paralympics
Mongolia, inspired
by their tweeting
prime minister, took
top spot!

69. Interact and engage: Google + and Youtube
• 818k Google + followers
• Unprecedented Google Plus global
“events” for opening and closing ceremony
– 5k people took part
• 1.1m views of “Rock the Games” (4:1
Live:VOD) on youtube.com/london2012 -
live performances and Q and A filmed in
London of Rizzle
Kicks, Mika, Noisettes, Lawson, Conor
Maynard and others

70. Interact and engage: Tumblr
• http://exploretheceremonies.tumblr.com/
• Backstage blog live during opening and
closing cermonies

71. Interact and engage: Location based Push message
sent to app
users as
• 60k Foursquare followers, people from 120 cauldron was
lit
countries check in to special Olympic and Torch
Relay badges
• 627k Facebook check ins to 40 venues
• Over 10m location-based push location
- based mobile push messages sent to all
ticketholders in stadia including exclusive
ceremony photos, spectator surveys and
information
• Around 60% open rates for push and around
60% of app users had location enabled
• 4,000 mobile spectator surveys completed

72. Interact and engage: QR codes
• QR codes on key spectator publications/leaflets
• 95k scans, mostly on day of events and mostly
from paper ticketholder spectator guide (1.2m
sent), 0.6% activation rate
• 3.5k scans from outdoor media, mainly shops

73. Interact and engage: Games
• 4m visits to the Mascots‟ games site –
www.london2012.com/mascots, 150,000
online mascots created
• Official mobile game – over 6.5m
downloads and #1 seller in UK
• The Official Video Game has been the
number 1 selling game in all formats
• Over 17m page views
across mini games

74. Interact and engage: Mobile
• 66,000 rang a digital bell on the Join In
App to welcome the Games on July 27th
• Tap and shake the Join in App for an
“easter egg”: 6 different dancing mascot
animations
• Notifications for chosen event start
times, chosen country medals and daily
medal table summary

75. Interact and engage: Music
• Opening ceremony album, Closing
ceremony album:
•#1 digital download in many, many
countries

76. Interact and engage: Email
• 83 million emails sent to 200 countries,
with 17 daily editions
• 13 million email opens, 5 million links
clicked
• Content targeting – 150 permutations:
• GB and non-GB editorial iterations
• Medal table and start times highlighted
based on country supported/favourite sports
• Daily regional event listings, based on users
postcode (UK) and targeted merchandise
offering based on preferences
• Unparalleled accessibility, featuring large text,
high visibility and dyslexia friendly email versions
as well as links to BSL content

77. Interact and engage: Samsung Paralympic bloggers
• 50 Leading Paralympic athletes used
a Samsung Note to blog live
• Purpose-built App and backend ingests
video, audio and phone calls – fully
accessible and used by blind and visually
impaired athletes
•Assets moderated on back end and
republished on
youtube.com/paralympicsporttv
•Athletes notified of publication so they can
share via social media
• 500 videos created
• 200,000 video views

78. 
Our Games-time online ambition
We set out a vision in 2010 To be the most visited Games-time website ever

comprising:

1. Ultimate authority on the Games with comprehensive, unbiased provision of
results;

2. A 'sense of live' that provides greater access to the event wherever the user
is;
3. Appealing to all audiences, irrespective of

location, ability, age, background, and level of sporting knowledge;

4. Encouraging people to interact and engage with the inspiring stories of the
Games.
5. Generate revenue (target confidential, sorry chaps)

79. Revenue: Ecommerce
• 1.427m unique visitors to shop.london2012.com
• Order volume well into six figures
40,000
35,000 LOCOG website RSS feed
LOCOG website - top navigation button
30,000 LOCOG website carousel
LOCOG ticketing site
25,000 LOCOG emails
Results app
20,000 Join In app
15,000
10,000
5,000
0

80. Revenue: Ad performance
• 5,951,035,484 Ad Impressions, 17 Campaigns
• Website click-through rates as high as 0.18%
• Average click-through rate across mobile site 0.30% / Apps = 0.56%
• „Join In‟ email newsletters – open rate on ads on average 0.20% +
Ad impressions by platforms
400,000,000
350,000,000
Ad impressions
300,000,000
250,000,000
200,000,000 App
150,000,000
Mobile
100,000,000
Tab
50,000,000
Web
-
01/07/2012
03/07/2012
05/07/2012
07/07/2012
09/07/2012
11/07/2012
13/07/2012
15/07/2012
17/07/2012
19/07/2012
21/07/2012
23/07/2012
25/07/2012
27/07/2012
29/07/2012
31/07/2012
02/08/2012
04/08/2012
06/08/2012
08/08/2012
10/08/2012
12/08/2012

81. And finally…a word of thanks
Without these organisations on our side this couldn‟t have happened
And of course our magnificent staff and volunteers...

82. And finally…a word of thanks
The London 2012 New Media team
• Head of New Media
Alex Balfour
• Deputy Head:
Morag Reavley: lead on Join In
App, Volunteering, Education, Ticketing, Shop, Accessibility, Translation
• Senior Producers
• Liz Goulding: Games-time website lead
• Finn Concannon: Social
• Andy Watkins: Torch Relay, Mapping, Technical lead
• Kavita Kapoor: Mascots, Travel, 3rd party integrations
• Producers
Antonia de Feo; Claire Watson; Clare Wolfensohn; Fiona Mclaren; Jacob
Melton; Tom Price-Stephens

83. And finally…a word of thanks
The London 2012 Results, Editorial, Technology teams
• Head of Results
Paula Booth
• Head of Editorial Services
Andrea Wilson (and her marvellous Games-time editorial team)
• Games-time Website project manager
Matilde Casirati
• Internet results service manager
Maxime Heppell
• Mobile Applications manager
Ed Valpy
• Internet tech leads
Chris Hudson (project management); Ian Bradley (testing); David Rogers
and leadership from Aaron Shone (security), Brian Cook, David Finch and
many others

84. Thank you
The official Emblem of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games
and Paralympic Games Ltd is protected by copyright. © London Organising Committee
of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Ltd 2007. All rights reserved.