Olympic Social Media Overload

When the London Olympic cauldron was lit, Channel Nine's Eddie McGuire predictably proclaimed: "Let the games begin!" Then, moments later, my twitter newsfeed became clogged with those very same words. There'd already been a painful live-tweeting marathon throughout the Opening Ceremony. Scores of tweeters took it upon themselves to commentate as each new country entered the arena.

During previous Olympics, cries of support for Aussie athletes came mainly from family and friends in my lounge room. Now they come from virtually everywhere, dominating social media, as though the whole world had come to an Olympic standstill.

I've always been inspired by the efforts and commitment of our athletes, but by day 3 of London 2012, I had a bad case of Olympics overload.

Retailers have always jumped onto the Olympic bandwagon in a bid to help promote their goods and services. A visit to any shopping centre during Olympics' gone by was a testament to that. But now social media is giving everyone a powerful new frontier to share the intricate details of their Olympic news and views.

London 2012 was lauded as the 'Social Media Olympics' and seeing posts and updates from the athletes themselves has been insightful and refreshing. But as for everyone else, I recommend leaving the commentary to Eddie McGuire. One of him is enough.

"Let the games begin!"