Olympics Meets Web 2.0... Almost

It seems strangely fitting that the first Olympics to be held in China is also the first to give its athletes the opportunity to use the Internet, but in a restricted manner.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has given the go-ahead to athletes blogging at the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, but has included restrictions to what I think would be the best part: athletes would not be allowed to post images or videos of events or Olympic venues for the duration of the Games -- effectively giving the athletes fewer privileges than any member of the public attending the Games.

Now, I'm not an IOC member, but my guess would be that there are two reasons for the restrictions: (1) to keep a tight rein on the image of the Olympics and its athletes, and (2) because of rights issues. The first reason is an absurd one, because celebrities both minor and major have learned the benefits of having a more candid online presence since the Web 1.0 days. The simple solution is to simply a matter of extending the media training that athletes already get.

I would bet, however, that the second reason is the main point of concern. Broadcast rights for the Olympics aren't cheap, and exclusivity is a huge factor. Even when media sites started streaming Olympics audio and video, they were sure to block outsiders as best as they could. (The same is true of NBC's ambitious interactive online Olympics video initiative, which will, alas, only be available in the U.S.) No doubt the IOC doesn't want to step on very lucrative toes.

But I submit that an athlete posting a video of an event (which wouldn't, of course, be live) would be very different from NBC doing the same. Athletes' commentaries on sports are, by their nature, different from even specialized armchair observers' thoughts. But why restrict commentary to only select retired athletes? And furthermore, wouldn't it be interesting to discover the perspective of a distance runner on a sprinting match, or a rhythm gymnast on synchronized swimming? What if a soccer player turns out to be a beach volleyball fanboy?

What the IOC fails to realize is that blogging and other aspects of what we call Web 2.0 are enormously popular because they complement and often support existing media. In the old days, ABC would have tried to squash the many Lost-related sites that popped up during the show's first season; now, they embrace it as a component they can't control, but that helps them enormously. The extra points of entry helped the show, rather than hurting it. The IOC shouldn't be restricting its athletes, it should be giving them all camcorders.

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