Blogaholics: I want more than the media can provide
Wow! Arieanna just wrote an incredible piece outlining how she feels blogging is missing from the Olympics. I'm going to point this out to several people as an example of how we might get a better glimpse into viewers as well as competitors.
Right now we have plenty of coverage of the Olympics. I'm seeing it a lot - I watch the coverage from the Canadian perspective and the US one - watching highlights on both channels to catch different elements of each event. I read the b5 media coverage. I catch snippets here and there over the Internet. But it's very one-sided. It's about the perception of the events - not the participation. From the viewers/commentators, not the athletes, their families, the coaches or the judges.
My understanding of the IOC rules indicates that athletes cannot blog their Olympic experiences. This is just wrong. It's not about granting exclusive media coverage to a multinational network - it's about capturing the event. And for that we need perspective. Right now the coverage is like a picture with giant holes cut in it.
When blogging is banned from certain perspectives, it not only makes me angry and annoyed, but it makes me feel empty. In this instance, I want more than the media can provide. Interviews are not the same thing as blogging. Blogging is a very personal activity - where one person by choice shares their perspective and emotions and pictures and lives. It's not edited and it's not driven in question/answer format.
Read the whole thing: Blogaholics - The Olympics needs perspective
Thanks also for the kind words to the team here, Arieanna. I'm lucky in that I'm just snapping pics with my cameraphone which got wooshed up to Flickr via ShoZu, so my post-processing is very limited other than blogging like this. Kris (Flickr stream) and Robert (Flickr stream) have lots of work to do sortin through their (very large) picture files, uploading, tagging, and also editing of video.
I can imagine by 2010 that I will easily be able to get an all-in-one mobile device that will be able to do pictures, video, and both writing and reading of blog content.
