Will's Web Watch: Streaking into Olympic history

With Team GB languishing between Zimbabwe and Poland in the Olympic medals table, looking enviously up the rankings at the likes of Romania and the sporting titans of Slovakia, you could be forgiven for looking for a little light relief. (Assuming you aren't still chuckling at the fact kayaking is actually an Olympic event.)

Thank God then for the streaker in the diving - even if the pool area has proven to be the one sporting arena where we have managed to salvage some pride.

Leaping from the board, to cheers from the crowd, was a semi-clad man, bearing a slogan across his chest.

Nothing brightens up a flagging sporting occasion like a streaker. But what's the technology angle you may ask? (Ed note: We were just about to.)

Step forward GoldenPalace.com, an online casino (which, apropos of nothing, is also the name of my local Chinese takeaway).

I wouldn't advise going there (the website not the takeaway, which does great things with duck) - hence no hyperlink - as your PC will be bombarded with adware and pop-ups but it was their logo that was emblazoned across the chest of the skinny dipper, doubtless guaranteeing mass coverage and a huge peak in site traffic.

And this isn't the first time they have barged into mainstream sports coverage uninvited.

In fact, Golden Palace-branded streakers (of both sexes) have graced the Super Bowl, the World Figure Skating Championships, the US Open and Royal Ascot to name but a few of the major events they have gate-crashed.

While I've already expressed good reasons not to like Golden Palace as a business, you do have to admire their marketing sense. Why splash-out on expensive advertising during the Olympics when you can literally splash-in to somebody else's air time?

Whether you love or loathe the blunderbuss approach of guerrilla marketing campaigns, it at least proves the upstart mentality and 'who dares wins' attitude of the dot-com boom days hasn't been entirely beaten out of the online sector.

Even if they have to bail out the occasional streaker from the police station or pay a nominal fine, the Amazons, MSNs and Yahoo!s of this world will tell you that through more legitimate means such coverage would come at a far higher price.