My First Social Media Orgy

To start with, I've never really been a fan of "opening ceremonies" or "closing ceremonies" of any sporting event. While I understand the symbolic-ism of such events, I have found that they've become more of a show-piece as a means to raise revenues through ticket and advertising sales. I'd put it into the same category as singers who feel the need to change a National Anthem into a 'power ballad'.

Last night was the 2010 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver. While a fantastic showpiece that demonstrated some rather unusual performances; punked-out fiddlers, spoken-word presentation, poorly coordinated lip-syncing by Bryan Adams & Nelly Furtado, and some wild-haired Opera singer...and a malfunctioning cauldron to light the ultimate symbol of the Olympic Games.

After watching a few shows I had dvr'd, I decided to tune in to the ceremonies, missing the first hour or so. Mimicking what I imagined most social media folks on Twitter or Facebook or whatever were doing, I sat with my laptop open ready to comment at some point of the event. What I didn't realize, was just how many other folks were doing the same thing!

I consider myself as a bit of a social media hobbyist, and therefore not attuned to the intricacies of Twitter or Facebook. I've learned that the number sign (#) prefixed in front of a word in Twitter brings you to a whole new sub-set of Tweets specifically related to that word. Last night, I stumbled upon #Olympics, and soon found myself in (what I'll refer to as) a social media orgy.

Tweets were coming in at an astounding rate of (as high as) 1,000+ per minute. I struggled between reading the posts and watching the ceremony. And, what amazed me the most, was that I was witnessing the true power of social media. Folks from all over the world were sounding off, providing insight, or paying respect to the folks of Vancouver who coordinated such an amazing event. Most of the time, the content was rather hilarious.

I was rather pleased with the level of content which was posted. Incidents of offensive language was minimal, and for something as real-time as this was, there were no lewd comments (that I could see). No one was asking if there were any young girls on-line, and no one posted threatening language. In fact, the folks who oversee Twitter activity did a nice gesture by not updating posts during the moment of silence for Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died earlier in the day from a luge accident.

The Ceremony itself was rather confusing, and trying to keep up with the number of posts only exasperated the confusion. I'm not sure I'm ready to contribute to the social media main stream. So perhaps I will ease my way into larger social media venues, so that way I'll have an opportunity to hone in my multi-tasking skills.