This weekend, 7000 athletes representing 177 different countries from all over the world will be arriving in Los Angeles, California with the honor of competing in this year’s 2015 Special Olympics World Games. Commencing July 25th, and continuing through August 2nd, the city of Los Angeles will play host to not only these athletes, but 3,000 coaches, 30,000 volunteers, and a projected 500,000 spectators. If those figures aren’t impressive enough, the 2015 Special Olympics World Games will be the largest sports and humanitarian event anywhere in the world in 2015, and the single biggest event in Los Angeles since the 1984 Olympic Games.
But what is it about the Special Olympics that truly makes the environment so special? Most would say its the enthusiasm, the spirit of winning, and most of all the sense of community it brings to all who want to be a part of it.
This year, an upgraded mobile app experience will combine both the social networking and media features of Facebook and Twitter and allow supporters to now have a chance to share the communal feeling of the Games and their experiences with people all over the world.
An app called Spontly is going to be used at the Games and is designed to give users the ability to become a fully engaged member of a community, based on the event the user chooses to check into. Available through a mobile device on both Android and Apple phones, users have the ability to communicate and chat about whatever event they are “checked into” no matter where they may be.
Spontly will provide Special Olympics World Games fans, guests, athletes, etc., with key elements and information about the events such as location, timing, setting, as well as background information all through an easy to use web platform. For this year’s World Games, Spontly gives users a variety of features such as:
- Sharing your photos/comments about the World Games via a live stream, or simply posting it to your Facebook/Twitter account
- Keeping up to date with pictures and updates from different people no matter where you are
- The ability to invite friends and family to events
- Discussion forums
- View athlete profiles
- A list of events with notifications as well as vouchers from sponsors
- The ability to post information via the live stream, as well as one-on-one messaging with other fans
Dating back to 2011, CEO of Spontly Jim Mann had a vision of taking social media sites that had too much constant traffic, such as the amount of twitter hashtags, and sought to figure out a way of putting a large variety of content in one unified place. Mann felt that one of the main problems with so much social media traffic, especially for big events, was that people never really felt like they were personally part of the experience.
“At this year’s World Games, Spontly allows you to be able to engage people who aren’t actually there, but would love to be,” said Mann. “Now, it becomes a community based event where people can interact and share their experiences.”
Mann and the Spontly team added these social media features to the app to help provide something people actively participate in, as opposed to something they simply attend.
“The key to what we do, ” stated Mann, “is that we build a community. And from that, the community will engage much deeper because everyone is able to be truly involved.”