Today marks the opening day of the 2012 Olympic games in London. For the next several weeks the world of sports will focus on London for its third hosting of this world class event. London hosted the Summer Olympics in 1908 and 1944 previously. The Olympic games have always embraced new technologies, perhaps not as fast as some of us would wish, but unlike other large bureaucratic institutions, the Olympics tried to stay ahead of the curve. This year will mark the first real test of social media’s impact on the Summer Olympics. While Facebook and Twitter were around four years ago, Facebook had 100 million members then compared to now over 900 million today, while Twitter had 6 million members when the games were hosted in Beijing in 2008 compared to 140 million today. This infographic from the International Olympic Committee shows how social media will play an integral part in this year’s Olympic games.
