Yesterday was the 100-day mark before the Olympics. The sound of social media engines revving could be heard from across the pond. The International Olympic Committee announced The Olympic Athletes’ Hub, a repository for over 1000 participating Olympians’ Facebook and Twitter accounts. From the Wall Street Journal: “This year promises to be the first truly social Olympic Games. Television networks are planning to incorporate athletes’ Twitter posts into broadcast spots, and marketers are planning a flood of Facebook marketing tied to the Games.”
The IOC has written a few pages of rules that all athletes must comply by. Athletes can only post “in a first-person, diary-type format and should not be in the role of a journalist.” Pictures are allowed, but no video or audio from inside events. In other words, the IOC doesn’t want athletes posting spoilers like, “I totally just won gold in the 100 meter!” Instead, expect updates like, “I totally just competed in the 100 meter!” I can see how and why the IOC wants to keep a lid on the events, but what’s to stop any one of the thousands of fans posting updates?
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