And the Customers Go Wild
For the last three years, IBM and the United States Golf Association have transformed USOPEN.com to bring the excitement of the U.S. Open Championship to golf fans wherever and whenever they want. New for 2011, the Web site has been updated, simplifying the access to content via a carousel of channels, and bringing forth the most relevant information while preserving the historical attributes of the Championship. Also new for 2011 is a feature called PicStream. During the Championship, USOPEN.com photographers will be publishing a stream of photos on USOPEN.com, in near real-time, capturing the latest action from Congressional Country Club for fans to enjoy.
Building on the success of 2010, this year's USOPEN.com user will have the ability to follow live Marquee Group coverage in near-HD quality. Updated for 2011 is a feature called Play Tracker, an interactive, data rich application with live scores, statistics for each player and the full field of competitors. It's a real-time visualization of the course indicating group/players' location, scores, stats which allows fans to follow the action, or their favorite player, like never before. The application will also feature a "Heat Map" of the course that indicates the holes playing easy or difficult at a glance.
For the fan on the go, you can follow the action on the iPhone application, featuring live Marquee group coverage, live scores, live radio, video highlights and much more. Fans can also go to USOPEN,com on their smartphone and view live scores, live radio, news and much more. The USOPEN.com Web site has also been optimized for the tablet computing environment.
Over the past 50 years, IBM has extended its business and infrastructure solutions into entertainment and professional sports. And for the last three years, IBM has partnered with the USGA. Through this partnership, IBM brings the same technology expertise and innovation it provides to businesses all over the world to the USGA and golf's national championship.
IBM looks forward to collaborating with the USGA beyond the 2011 U.S. Open Championship as the USGA continues to strengthen the game of golf to meet the needs of their members, member clubs and business partners.