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 Linda Thomas
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Social media guide to the Summer Olympics

July 26, 2012 @ 7:03 pm (Updated: 6:47 am - 7/30/12 )

Let the games begin! The 2012 London Olympics begin with the opening ceremony Friday and continue through August 12th.

Olympics

There are nearly a billion options for keeping track of the Olympics online, on TV, and through social media. I've narrowed the list down to my top five suggestions for staying connected with the athletes and events during The Olympics.

1. The Olympic Athletes Hub. This connects Facebook and Twitter accounts into a platform that allows you to track athletes who have social media accounts. The top followed athlete is - I wouldn't have guessed - LeBron James with more than 17 million fans, followed by Kobe Bryant and Roger Federer. There will also be chat opportunties once the games are underway.

2. NBC also has an Olympics Twitter Tracker. There you'll find tweet streams for every Olympic sport and athlete on Twitter and provides complete bios, videos, photos, and news stories about the sports stars. Here's Hope Solo's page, for example, from Richland, Washington. You can find out who or what is trending, and see how many tweets per minute are coming in.

3. YouTube Olympic coverage. The IOC has created the Official Olympic Channel. It features playlists from Olympics past and will offer your favorite current Olympic moments, too.

4. Websites and Apps. Not social, but when you just want quick information the top Olympic-specific websites are London2012, and TeamUSA. Tumblr will be an interesting source for user-generated content and photos. The apps I'd download are "London 2012: Official Results" for realtime results and schedules, available for Android and iPhones, and both platforms have free Olympic Medal counters.

5. KING TV's Olympics Zone. KING 5 will be the only local station covering the Olympics and they have links to local athletes' social media pages, videos and interviews with locals too. Find reports from Allen Schauffler and follow him on Twitter - @schauffKING5.

Bonus Seattle Times local Olympians tracker. Their interactive tool helps you explore how Olympians with ties to Washington state are doing in the 2012 Olympic Games. Hover over the icons for information about specific events

By LINDA THOMAS

Photo, courtesy Tunblr, Matthew Micham

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Comments (6)


  • Add A Comment

  • eric von zipper wrote...
    Sadly...
    July 27, 2012 8:08 am
    The vapid, US Magazine-esque personality and gossip driven coverage of the Olympics have dragged down the Games, in my opinion. In the good old days the events were covered with some level of purity and simplicity - showing the events as completely and chronologically as possible. Now the coverage is manic, jumpy, over-produced and relies far too much on the up-close-and-personal personality/feature based segments. I know Linda Thomas adores the blurb-based shallowness of social media but to me so much of it seems like the banalities written in one's high school annual. I know I'm a has-been...but I liked the old Olympics.
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  • TheNewsChick wrote...
    Eric
    July 27, 2012 9:12 am
    I agree with you more than you think! I liked the "old school" Olympics, and remember the magic of watching gymnastics from Nadia Comaneci to Mary Lou Retton. As for social media, it can be shallow, but when you really dig into it and create relationships (especially real world ones) it's a beautiful thing.
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  • mnpat wrote...
    If you can count real friends on one hand
    July 27, 2012 12:08 pm
    You are more fortunate then 99% of the masses.......real friends are not found on line but you will find a lot of folks that are pretty much vain or consumed with other peoples lives.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • gomariners wrote...
    Olympics
    July 27, 2012 8:12 pm
    I love the Olympics but can't stand Costas, Lauer and Mededith Viero - no clue I spelled that right. This opening is sort of strange, thank goodness for my DVR. I can watch the game, go back and forth to the Olympics and fast forward over the weird/boring parts. Oh and mute the nbc narrators.
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  • mnpat wrote...
    gomariners.......I'm with you
    July 28, 2012 7:25 am
    All I could think of when I saw those people was the line from the movie, "Land of the Lost" when Will Farrell as Dr. Marshall presents him with his new book....."Matt Lauer can Suck it".
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  • TheNewsChick wrote...
    Matt and Meredith
    July 28, 2012 7:18 pm
    I stopped liking Matt when he got Ann Curry kicked of the today show. I used to like Meredith, but that was the most lame commentary I've heard. Either that was scripted poorly or neither of them can adlib. #NBCfail is an interesting hashtag to follow in Twitter. BBC Broadcast team was far superior.
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