Sports Technology & Communications News from Around the World

The World Cup is a plenty big deal to those who don’t spend a great deal of time on the Internet. It’s an equally big deal to those who do indeed spend quite a bit of time on the web and that’s the reason Google and ESPN (News - Alert) have teamed up to include the tournament’s video highlights into web searches. These highlights will include those that are in-progress, as well as post match wrap-up.

Google (News - Alert) and ESPN are just two companies with big time web presences changing the way they are doing things for the World Cup. Twitter is just one other social media site that has changed things up in order to cater to the change in web traffic going on during this tournament. Web activity isn’t just being affected in a positive way during this celebration of sport. Hackers are also changing the way they operate with Anonymous taking aim specifically at World Cup websites.

What Google and ESPN have done is quite a bit more positive, allowing people who haven’t been able to sit down in front of their televisions to still see some of the best parts of the best games. There is one catch; the search results page won’t actually play the highlights. Instead, the search results will guide you to ESPNFC.com where you can then watch the highlights and wrap-ups.

Google is also bringing soccer fans all kinds of information about the games and what is happening during the contests, such as detailed overviews of games as they happen. This means a simple search will bring up who scored a goal, got a penalty or red cards and a host of other statistics. If users search for full games, the top search results will send them directly to WatchESPN. In order to watch the whole game, people will need to have the right kind of cable subscriptions. Most but not all cable providers have a deal in place that allows people to watch ESPN content live through their browsers and mobile devices.