Confusion Over Blogging/Tweets By Olympic Athletes In Vancouver

It appears as though the athletes are unsure of the Olympic Committee's stance on blogging and tweeting from the games.however, Bob Condron, the Director of Media Services for the United States Olympic Committee says “Athletes are free to blog during the Games,”  “And Twitter is just a blog that’s written 140 characters at a time.”

There will be  some restrictions on what athletes can do online during the games. The IOC Blogging Guidelines for the 2010 Games, says that accredited people, including athletes, must keep their posts confined to their personal experiences. “You can’t act as a journalist if you aren’t,” says Condron. “You need to do things in a first person way.”

“These are going to be the Twitter Olympics,” says Condron. “There’s no telling where the updates will come from. It could be the bench during a hockey game, or even on the medal stand."

I wonder how much this will affect Twitter's numbers as the world tunes into the Olympics?

Source: Wired

Olympic Highlights Coming To Youtube In Underdeveloped Nations

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has struck a deal with Youtube to make highlights of the Beijing Games available in 77 territories in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where no broadcasting deals exist or the deals in place are not exclusive. "The Olympic Games will be played out on Facebook, YouTube and Flickr whether we like it or not. We need to engage, not disengage, with them," said London 2012 head of new media, Alex Balfour. "The main objective is to give as much access to as many people as we can," Youtube representative Anthony Zameczkowski told the CBC. With the games a half a world away, most of us will be getting highlights and rebroadcasts anyway, and with the surge in social networking it will be interesting to see how much amatuer video, photography, and commentary makes it to the likes of Youtube, Flickr, and Blogger.

International Olympic Committee Warns China About Internet Access During Games

Inspectors dispatched by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have said that China is obligated to provide journalists with web access under its Games contract. The final inspection before the games begin in August is currently underway and IOC's Kevan Gosper has said "There was some criticism that the Internet closed down during events relating to Tibet in previous weeks - but this is not Games time," Gosper added that "Our concern is that the press is able to operate as it has at previous Games during Games time." 30,000 journalists are expected to be in Beijing covering the Olympics. I suspect that if there are incidents during the games and Internet access goes down, there will be a very good technical reason for the coincidence... whether it reflects poorly upon the host nation or not. BBC News Story here.