NBC Olympics and NBC Live Extra

It happens with every major sporting event these days but with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, multiply by five the number of new ways to follow the event using a mobile device.

NBC alone, which will be broadcasting the games, has two to help users follow the action no matter where a viewer happens to be. The first is called, quite simply, "NBC Olympics" and offers up the mother lode of content: news, videos, blogs, medal counts, information on London and the venues, neat features like finding out about Olympic athletes who grew up near where a user lives and Twitter tracking.

For those who prefer to watch the Olympics live, NBC has its Live Extra app for live and replayed video streams of all the events. The only caveat is to use it and have access to all those videos, a person has to be a subscriber to a cable or other type of TV package that includes CNBC and MSNBC.

2012 Team USA Road to London

Team USA has its own app, the "2012 Team USA Road to London Olympics," which not only allows the user to follow your favorite U.S. athletes but also allows quick links to contact them via Twitter or Facebook through a cheer button.

London 2012: Officials Results

There is also, of course, the "London 2012: Official Results" app, which gives the user news and results of all the events but is a good one for those who want to follow how a non-US country is doing and set preferences for specific alerts on any of the countries competing.

London 2012: Official Join In

And finally for anyone who plans on heading to London to catch the games is the London 2012: Official Join In app. It helps the user not only navigate the games and venues but also lists the other types of Olympic-related entertainment and events happening throughout the games.

All of the apps mentioned above are available on iOS and Android devices and are all free.