London Socialympics 2012

Posted by on Jul 16, 2012 in Ibeology | 2 comments

I had seen it coming. The marriage of social media and Olympics. And it is already happening. The upcoming London Olympics is going to be Socialympics (read Social Media Olympics).

Ever since I read that the coveted event will be told in 140 characters, I am going crazy writing my sample tweets. My laptop already has a 100 tweets saved. This Olympics is slated to become the most tweeted and tagged event in history. The hashtags, likes, national flags, national athletes, everything will take center stage. Yes, everything, not just the flags. Gosh! I am anticipating this big one with bated breath.

Did you know Facebook has already launched an Olympic page that groups teams, sports, athletes and broadcasters, all in one place? I can’t wait to see my favorite athletes there.

Does that mean photo sharing can happen in a big way too? Yes, most certainly, as long as one is not monetizing it or using it for any commercial purpose.

Filming events

For those of you who like filming events, here is some good news. You can film this entire event.

We have a go ahead from Alex Hout, the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC), Head. He says people are allowed to film events on their phones. But they are not to upload content to public sites. Also, as per the mandate given by IOC, social media posts should be written in a “first-person”, diary-type format. That means, we need to be a little careful about what we are doing and how we are doing it.

Athletes’ Hub

Now for some more exciting news!

The IOC with 760,000 Twitter followers and 2.8 million on Facebook is all geared up to host live chats with the athletes from inside the Olympic village. Watch out for the following:

You can pose questions using social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.
Your posts will be collated on their already created portal called, the Athletes’ Hub.

Expect record Tweets

Guys, if you were bowled over by users sending 13,684 tweets per second during a Champions League soccer match between Barcelona and Chelsea this April (definitely a record volume of tweets for a sporting event) then I am sure we are in for something bigger this time. The tweet record for a sporting event could well be broken in London soon. I am tempted to lay a bet on that. Ready?

I sign out in a sporty mood (literally), to go back and fill myself with the latest dope on London Olympics…or should I say Socialympics? Catch you at the games people.