Since the Olympics are taking place in 2010, they are required by iron-clad law to involve Twitter in some way. NBC has set up a page called
“Olympic Pulse” as a sort of social networking hub, complete with Twitter feeds from athletes, who apparently have a spare moment to type out their
thoughts while not training rigorously.
“We saw more blogging and such in Beijing, but Twitter and Facebook as sources of information have really taken off since those Games,” says
Jeremy Littau, assistant professor of journalism at Lehigh University. “The direct access to athlete voices (as well as the potential for livetweeting) is
tremendous and adds another layer of live coverage and access that we normally would just get with television. A fanatic of the Games probably will get
a richer experience than they’ve ever had if they choose to tap into it.”