A lot has happened since I played a bit of ‘media tennis’ in 2008, watching Wimbledon . IBM had introduced the ‘Slam Tracker’ and I was toggling between the TV coverage on NBC,  watching the scores update online, and listening to ‘Radio Wimbledon’ streamed over the website.

This year, I find the live blog adds a new ‘camera angle’ so to speak. Check this one, covering the women’s game with prose like this about Tsveti Pironkova, who went on to beat Venus Williams:

“Tsveti is tserving up a tstorm. Strong but above all accurate. Bepa’s not getting a look-in at all and is totally on the back foot as Tsveti is following up her services with deep ground strokes.”

Enter the Red Button: The media is also covering Wimbledon in new ways. Take the case of BBC. For those of us in North America who don’t have the interactive TV experience that the Brits have had (I’m talking pre-internet, analog interactivity of Ceefax etc) there’s something called ‘PLASMA teletext content management solution.’

Today there’s the service known as the Red Button from BBC INteractive (BBCi). It is complemented by the functional red button on the new remote. Viewers watching Wimbledon, could select to watch the game from different courts, or engage in a discussion online.

Then there’s the podcasting and ‘radio’ coverage –a.k.a. Radio Wimbledon. Once again a great blend of behind the scenes information, rather than the volley-by-volley coverage we tend to get. This is how the blogosphere can provide a richer experience, whether you are at or following a conference, or an international event. I’ll end with this bit of writing by one Matt Hill, from the Radio Wimbledon blog:

Me? I sit in a small, windowless room at the end of the day and put the highlights together with a popular song. And I love it. This is for two reasons:

1. I suffer from chronic hayfever. I hate the grass, and the grass hates me.

2. It’s my chance to inflict my preferred music on everyone else.

In the end, this year, I settle for the live radio —that you can listen to here. As one listener’s commented (read on air by the broadcaster) “Who needs NBC, when we can have Radio Wimbledon.”