Olympic Countdown

At a recent media breakfast, they were all banging on about Twitter and how much of an impact it will have during the Olympic Games. Following the announcement that the UK’s tweeting population is now the fourth largest in the world, this is hardly surprising. Currently standing at 10 million- the UK’s twitter following is greater than the circulation figures for all our national newspapers combined.

So for those writing about the Olympics (and we know every man and his dog will be), how will Twitter affect them?

MSN are posting real-time updates on the games, complete with ‘athletes in action’ videos, torch mapping and readers’ submissions, pictures and tweets. Of course they will be curating the tweets sent in, but surely that’s going to be one hell of a job?

BBC on the other hand, are launching a special radio station – BBC Radio 5 Olympics Live Extra – for the games and will have up to 24 live streams available across four screens, including PC, mobile, online and connected TV.

Although the Bejing Olympics was not that long ago, the London Olympics will be the first truly social Games. In technology terms, 2008 was hop, skip and a long jump away from where we are today. There wasn’t a high demand for apps, tablets hadn’t taken off yet, and the concept of watching live TV on our mobile phones was something many people couldn’t get their head around.

At the media breakfast, Head of Social Media at MSN UK, Darren Waters, claimed that social media has moved from being a social network and is now, in fact, a destination. 

So whatever platform you will be watching it on, you are sure to feel like you are there – even if you are sitting at your desk moaning about how long it took you to get in. 

By Stephanie Rock