go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

Olympic Fans Asked to Stop Tweeting So Much

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5929971/olympics-fans-asked-to-kindly-stop-tweeting-so-damn-much

Hey, uh, Olympics spectators? Really glad you made it out and all, totally appreciate the support and money you spent on those tickets and the fact that you painted those little flags on your faces. All of that’s great, seriously. But it turns out you’re also tweeting so much that it’s interfering with our event broadcasts. So knock it off. Please.

That’s the basic message from the International Olympic Committee, which Reuters reports has asked viewers of outdoor races to cool it a little with with social media. The reason? A surge of tweets during yesterday’s cycling road race made competent television coverage nearly impossible:

Commentators on Saturday’s men’s cycling road race were unable to tell viewers how far the leaders were ahead of the chasing pack because data could not get through from the GPS satellite navigation system travelling with the cyclists.

Organizers fear the same fate awaits the men’s and women’s marathon and the triathlon, unless live viewers refrain themselves from tweeting unless it’s “urgent,” which honestly there’s no such thing as an urgent tweet, right? That’s silly.

Anyways! The most likely outcome is that people will continue to tweet, and signals will continue to take a hit, and we’ll all continue to have a good laugh about how far behind our infrastructure is from where we need it to be in an age of real-time everything. [Reuters]

Tags: commentators, cycling, cyclists, fate, Gizmodo, gps satellite navigation, international olympic committee, olympic fans, Organizers, outdoor races, Pack, race, reason, Reuters, reuters reports, road, satellite, satellite navigation system, stop, Television, television coverage, tweets