Without spending a cent as an Olympic sponsor, the brand which is dominating headlines around the 2012 London Olympics is one that barely existed four years ago.  Twitter has not been part of any elaborate ambush sting but it’s place at the heart of fan engagement has never been more clearly seen than in the first days of the Games.
It started on Friday night when US broadcaster NBC elected to show the opening ceremony on tape delay rather than live in an attempt to secure better viewing figures.  Up until Beijing this was generally how the US TV network treated events that did not fall in primetime.
The pace of change in communication brought live back into the equation and after #NBCFail began trending on twitter around the world they must have known that holding back live coverage was a mistake.
When the founder of the internet Sir Tim Berners Lee tweeted during his cameo in the ceremony it went around the world like a flaming arrow.
On Saturday, twitter was blamed by broadcasters for overloading the communications networks and preventing the relay of information from GPS sensors on the Cycling Road Race.  When the Women’s race took place the following day, supporters were asked to tweet and text with restraint.  It appears that King Canute’s influence lives on.
On Monday, a group of US athletes, including Nick Symmonds who we featured last week, sent coordinated messages calling for a greater athlete share in the massive sponsorship money generated by the Olympics.
Later that same day a 17 year old student in Dorset was arrested for posting a series of offensive tweets about diver Tom Daley one of which he reacted by re tweeting to his  audience of nearly one million followers.
Four days in and one small means of communication is rivalling the action in the pool and on the courts as the story of the games.
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