Many articles have been written about the use of social media at the 2010 Olympic Games. Just three days into it and we are seeing a great proliferation of social media, mobile media and blogs coming from Vancouver. There is a lot of talk about what the athletes are doing (they are tweeting and twitpicking), but what about the “reporters?” (Yes, I meant for “reporters” to be in quotes).
I love the Yahoo Sports blog called Fourth Place Medal. This blog has been around since the summer games in China and I hope it is around for a few more games. The writers take a different look at the game, including a posting called Kirstin Holum: From Nagano to nunnery. One of my favorite early posts:
Fourth-Place Medal investigates the mystery of the biathlon rifles.
Today we tackle our first question of these Olympic Games: What’s the deal with those biathlon rifles?
Though they look like toys, these rifles are very real. They shoot .22 caliber bullets at over 1,000 feet per second. To put it another way, if used in the wrong way, it could be deadly. It rarely is. Though biathletes deal with dangerous conditions and elements, the sport has a remarkable safety record when it comes to the rifles. Our search found no known fatalities in major competition.
Bonus fact: Biathlon is the sweatiest sport at the Winter Olympics. A 2002 study showed that athletes competing in the 20-kilometer race produce approximately five pounds of sweat during the event.
So that was the good. Now onto the not so good…
If you are a fan of figure skating, you might want to skip the commentary by Kristi Yamaguchi and Peter Carruthers who are blogging live during the competitions. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a huge fan of both Yamaguchi and Carruthers. If you know anything about skating you know these two. They were great skaters and they are amazing leaders in the sport, but someone really should take away their keyboards and/or smartphones.
They are not providing audio commentary on the NBC TV broadcast, which means they can just chat it up during the entire performances. These are some of their really “insightful” posts:
They’ll need to stand on their feet….
Pacific Coliseum is SILENT
Impossible Dream music — appropriate for the moment.
One minute left in the warm-up.
The PA announcer just informed the audience that if they wished to throw flowers to the ice, they must be completely wrapped. So noted.
Yes, so noted. But probably could have skipped it.
Another thing I don’t like about these postings is that while I understand that results are often spoiled because of delayed TV coverage, knowing the results of this competition because I read this silly blog posting is a bit of a downer.
Where are you getting your Olympic news? What are some of your favorite reporters? Let us know who we should or should not be following.
on Facebook
on Twitter
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