Do any of you guys remember Quokka.com? Someone asked about Slowtwitch being on the air yesterday (good question) and it has been on my mind ever since. Quokka was a highly sophisticated (IMHO- way ahead of their time) web portal that enabled you to tailor sports coverage to your own tastes, or was trying to do that. In the Marathon des Sables they attempted to put GPS transponders on some athletes so you could follow their location in the Sahara live, via satellite. You keyed in their race number and their position on the course, current speed, name, etc came up on a graphic map of the region. You were supposed to be able to zoom in and zoom out on the map. We're talking total James Bond here. Very cool. That I am aware of it never functioned 100% and Quokka went bankrupt. They had some interesting ideas though. Now: Imagine everyone in Ironman wearing a miniature GPS transponder. Your frineds at home log onto to Ironmanlive.com and key in your race number, a course map comes up and boom, there you are, it tells you elapesed time, pace, splts and name. That would be cool. For you I.T. guys: How far away is this from reality? Am I the only one who would think this is cool? Quokka ruled. Too bad they went away. And yeah, I lost money on their stock too...
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com