2010 March, 6th

Phil Butler

The IOC recently created its very own YouTube channel to broadcast Olympic video. This is great news for spectators of future events, as well as Olympic fans or documenters who would love to view past Olympic greatness. In fact, more channels like this on YouTube pretty much renders Google’s “best buy ever” as that online TV channel many have looked for.

Great news in the wake of the successes of Vancouver, and the tragedy too if we remember luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.

We all know and love YouTube obviously, but adding content like the IOC can submit? Well, this is big time news for Google and YouTube, not to mention the rest of us. If the reader can imagine the fragmented nature of videos a writer has to search through, or even those a fan has to, to watch such content – it is daunting sometimes. Now original content from the games can be streamed directly to your door. The best content. There are down sides for the IOC though, and I will make no bones about pointing them out right here.

The Olympic YouTube Channel

YouTube 2012

Being immersed in all things Web 2.0, as much as anyone these last few years, it is not really that difficult to predict the next level of interactivity in our connected world. Mobile and other technologies have made this a real time streaming world, and more importantly an interconnected one.

The people in charge of the IOC, to be quite frank, are not unlike most traditional business people. They know the need to connect, they can buy the expertise, but understanding fully what they are doing? Well, this is another matter. Take the death of Georgian luge competitor Nodar for example. I am sure the officials at the IOC, the FIL, and other organizations felt some of the brunt of Web interconnectedness after their inappropriate insult toward Nodar, but nothing that which may come from their further engagement of these social channels.

“Vancouver 2010 was the first Olympic Winter Games to have digital media coverage freely available across the world, provided by the rights-holding broadcasters. The IOC, and its wholly owned subsidiary, Olympic Broadcast Services, will now make over 400 highlight clips available of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, as well as footage of previous Olympic Games.”

So that the reader, and maybe the IOC can understand what I mean, imagine YouTube two years from now. Google is obviously (to me at least) making a significant move toward solidifying their social elements (Gmail, Wave, Gtalk, and now Buzz) into a potentially market changing suite of interconnected services. If the IOC or any organization is intent on going so social these words should be considered whispers from the wise, “springing forward into an IOC and Olympic digital reality is a double edged sword.” In a couple of years YouTube will be so socially interactive that a tragedy and goofy PR move like refusing accountability would damn the IOC to hell brand wise. If you don’t believe me, consider the Web’s impact on their position during the course of Vancouver.

The BS Stops Here

I have been covering some of the technology and processes coming out of the CeBIT 2010 Exhibition in Hannover.  High government officials and experts there are lauding emerging technologies and universal engagement on the merits of business and economic advantages, and even speaking of such things as embedding bar codes into people’s skin there. This, of course, not so much as something out of Orwell’s 1984 – but as control mechanisms never the less. However, the other end of the spectrum may be as well considered for things such as “instantaneous referendum or voting” and the like. Imagine an interactive scenario where IOC President Jacques Rogge, whose duty it is to oversee these games,  blames an athlete like Nodar for his own death then. Sure the IOC is not voted on by the public at large, but it is not hard to visualize  a digital Christmas tree light up demanding his removal from office, if not the EU altogether.

“Jim Thorpe and 100 other greats watch over the human drama of athletic competition from on high, along with competitors awaiting their place along side them – like  Nodar Kumaritashvili. Who waits out there for those not worthy of titles and positions who somehow occupy them?”

To sum all this up, let me demonstrate a little of the power of the interactive Web, on behalf of all the would be Nodar Kumaritashvili’s in the world. When the IOC and these other officials sullied the name a reputation of a fine young athlete, for the purposes of evading culpability (which was so obviously there) in his death, they spit on the institution of Olympic ideal and each and every one of us. This is not just my view either. For me personally, this insult is being taken in the most grievous light. Traditional (old time) thinkers need to be appraised of the power Google and some other interconnected media has bestowed upon people.

Until the IOC and these other organizations retract, in as far as is possible, this spot upon the reputation of Nodar Kumaritashvili (his friends and family) we will interject his good name onto IOC news like a stamp of shame. Google alerts, Google News, social media, social networking and a range of other mechanisms are perfectly suited to enable the just to be a thorn in the side of the unjust. Not even the expert PR or communications firm fully understand how effective these modalities can be – the just use them for a limited scope actually. Take my word for it, by the time 2012 rolls around, let alone 2014, Nodar Kumaritashvili tragic fate can easily be ingrained into the psyche of everyone bearing two common attributes; a love or interest in the Olympic Games, and a digital connection.

A Tribute to the Helpless Hero

This is my homage to the fine man who would be alive today is due diligence had superseded mediocrity of the worst kind. Call it an old athlete’s tribute to the essence of sport, whatever you like, these people served up an inconceivable atrocity against us all whether the reader sees it that way or not. You will see it again, and again, until the truth of this statement reaches you. Just as big business and the politicians grasp the golden ring of the digital revolution, people like you and I must too. More later.

Watch this video, and let your heart find the right path.

• 2010/03/22 -- Ireland’s Hickey to Represent IOC at Nodar Kumaritashvili Memorial
• 2010/03/24 -- Felix Loch, IOC’s Hickey Attend Memorial to Nodar Kumaritashvili
• 2010/03/13 -- Nodar Kumaritashvili’s Death, and Still More IOC Bad PR
• 2010/08/16 -- The Singapore Youth Games, Olympic Monetization
• 2010/05/30 -- Procter and Gamble’s Online Marriage, A Pitiful Engagement
• 2010/04/18 -- BBC’s Report on Nodar Kumaritashvili Wields Heavy Hammer, Andre Lange
• 2010/04/12 -- Video Evidence Should Affect the FIL’s Report to the IOC

About the Author

Phil Butler is editor-in-chief of Everything PR and senior partner at Pamil Visions PR. He’s a widely cited authority on beta startups, search engines and public relations issues, and he has covered tech news since 2004. Phil wrote in the past for ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, Profy, SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, AltSearchEngines. Follow Phil on Twitter or send him an email at phil [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.

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