As most of you know, I went to Beijing on August 8th, for four days on the ground, with access to behind-the-scenes at NBC. While there, I hoped to blog live about what I was seeing and experiencing there, particularly with regard to mobile content.

China Mobile booth babes

There was one problem: Blogging is a suspect activity in China. No matter that MobilizedTV isn’t about Tibet or human rights, it was impossible for me to access the blog from the Internet in my Holiday Inn hotel room in downtown Beijing or from my laptop inside NBC’s broadcast center. My NBC contact told me he isn’t able to access Facebook. And on a tour of the Olympic Green (the area that encompasses Bird’s Nest, Water Cube, the International Broadcasting Center and other areas), he pointed out the skyscraper that houses the Chinese government’s IT division, responsible apparently for tracking down keywords and stomping out blogs.

But I did take notes–and photos, and will share some impressions with you all about the mobile scene in Beijing, specific to the Olympics. China Mobile is one of the Olympic sponsors and, as such, has gone all out to promote its offerings not just to the Chinese public but especially to visitors. My hotel room didn’t have a Gideon’s bible but it did have a pamphlet from China Mobile outlining the short codes for information about events.

China Mobile also had a pavilion in the Olympic Green, the inner sanctum of this year’s Olympics and Beijing’s most modern Forbidden City. Much has been written about the fact that NBC broadcasts show a lot of empty seats–puzzling since much was written about the scarcity of tickets.

All I know is that getting into the Olympic Green without a permanent pass (I received a temporary pass each day I was there, in exchange for my passport) was dicey business. A ring of police circle the green at major traffic intersections and nobody gets through who isn’t vetted by police, who seem to be the only people in China who don’t speak at least some English. Every day I went through the same pantomime–that I would get my credential (mime a necklace) at the Olympic IBC (hand waving). It was never an easy wave-through, although I was never turned back. The taxi drivers who ran the gauntlet became obviously stressed at the interactions.

China Mobile pavilion in the Olympic Green

The China Mobile pavilion–on a same Olympics Green street as pavilions for Coca Cola, Volkswagen and other partners–aimed to show visitors just how cool and hip they are. That included a DJ spinning the equivalent of Chinese trance music and some funny ha-ha and funny-strange interactive displays (one of them had me dial a number, say my wish, and then my wish was broadcast loud–and I mean loud–while a fairy-like sprite cavorted on the big screen in front of me). And, of course, there were the obligatory booth babes (see above).

Beijing breakdancer in China Mobile pavilion

I don’t know if China Mobile needs much more publicity among Chinese: Everyone appears to have one, and they’re all texting like mad. My taxi was going too fast, but I did pass someone on a moped in the middle of Beijing traffic who was steering with one hand and texting with another. You’ll have to take my word for it.

How fast have these changes been? My NBC contact said that in the month prior to the Olympics that he’d been there, he’d seen streets, overnight, be transformed with trees, bushes, flowers and Olympic flags waving from flagpoles.

DJ spins tunes for China Mobile pavilion

I’m sure mobile–and China Mobile–have been around for awhile. Nonetheless, Beijing was dotted, every block, with the familiar standard bearer of more traditional telephony: the phone booth.

More later on Beijing and the Olympics.

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