With a decision of who will host the 2016 summer Olympic Games just around the corner, I'd thought I take a look at the homepages of the four cites bidding for the games. Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro. At stake is a project that is projected to cost $5 to $9 billion dollars to execute and would bring in an estimated $22 billion dollars in revenue over 10 years according to the Chicago organizers.

To say there is a lot at stake is an understatement of olympic proportion. Since the bidding cities cannot invite the 115 members of the International Olympic Committees to their cities nor can they send them anything that can be construed as gifts, each city has been executing enormous PR campaigns to push their case. Chicago has spent $49.3 million in theirs alone. I find it fascinating to see the resulting advertising and PR work for this kind of high pressure competition.

As far as bidding city website homepages I feel that Chicago and Tokyo a serious level of sophistication befitting an Olympic city. The bold imagery of the Chicago site fits it perfectly and possess a sense of happening. The Tokyo homepage has a very interesting approach. If you were to remove any mention of Tokyo, the cartoonish look of the website would lead you to think of Europe more than east Asia. It has a Lady and the Tramp look.

Take a look for yourself...

Leverage is one of my favorite words. As in: leveraging something to create something more valuable. To me “leverage” in the world of digital marketing is a really important concept and I recently ran across a great example of this.

The PEW Internet & American Life Project released a study that sheds some light on the generational differences of internet users in the U.S. The report was conducted from 2006-2008, and is a facinating peek into internet behavior. This study shows that the internet is not all about 20 year olds using Facebook.