2008 July 15 «

Social media and Olympics introduces a new angle — and a new headache — for organizers, sponsors, fans and control freaks.

Like anything else into which a dollop of social media is introduced (politics, international relations, war etc) the authenticity and immediacy of those in the field upstage traditional media. The field can include the battlefield as in this tank commander’s blog, or diplomacy. It’s Kevin Sites in the hot zones as opposed to Katie Couric in Iraq.

So the move by Lenovo to empower athletes to blog from the 2008 Olympics is an interesting experiment that others will quickly follow. The program called The Voices of The Olympics empowers insiders to give the world a glimpse of the Olympics, while bypassing the mainstream media as the conduits of information. The blogs, some of them in their native language (Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish and English) will not be produced or edited.

Lenovo has defined the blogging parameters well so as to skirt any sponsorship snafus and branding skirmishes. It notes that:

“Lenovo does not regard the blogs of the participating athletes to be Lenovo blogs – nor will Lenovo ever ask for any overt advertising or sponsorship acknowledgement on the athlete’s blogs.”

Jennifer Nichols (US archer), and Chilean Pabo McCandless are part of the blogging team covering the games for us. AS NBC and other media outlets parachute into the Olympic village to transmit the best camera angles and terrific close ups, expect to see the human side of the games from the Lenovo-backed bloggers reporting from the other hot zone.