Olympics Dilemma: To Tweet Or Not To Tweet?

It seems that NBC's decision to choose Twitter as its preferred social media partner for the 2012 Olympics is resulting in more trouble than good publicity. According to Olympics officials, spectators should Tweet blow-by-blow accounts of events only when necessary. Quite ironic for a chosen Internet partner. The issue blew up as a result of delayed information on the men's cycling event, which disabled TV commentators from identifying who really was in the lead. How so? Fingers pointed to disrupted data dissemination from too much Tweeting going around. According to UK publcation The Independent, the cyclists' bikes were fitted with a GPS unit that transmits information about their progress to the organizers. Unfortunately, the heavy Twitter traffic caused problematic GPS signals and a very disappointed TV coverage. "We don?t want to stop people engaging in this by social media and sending updates. But perhaps they might consider only sending urgent updates," said Mark Adams, International Olympics Committee (@olympics)?communications director, in a tweet. To give an idea of the volume of Tweets on the event, the opening ceremony alone generated a massive 10 million tweets.