The Good and the Bad: It’s All Relative at the London 2012 Olympics

Tuesday, July 31st, 2012

Are you watching the Olympics on tape delay wondering why there are empty seats in the arena? Are you wondering what that crazy tower in front of the stadium is all about? Are you curious about some of the unbelievably fast times?

If so, you’re like many of us who are noticing much more than just the events and the athletes. And, since many of us are posting those questions and comments in the social media space, why don’t we just dive right in and take a little look see at those conversations.

The chart you see here plots just a few of those events in terms of how many people are talking about them in social media (the vertical axis) as well as how happy people are when they talk about about the event (the horizontal axis).

So far, the most positive event has been the opening ceremonies with both the most chatter and the most positive chatter. The cauldron itself, though marred by disappointment because people can’t actually get to it, is still quite positive. It’s nice to be sitting in the top right quadrant where the world view is green and gold.

On the other hand, the empty seats in the stadiums, the tape delays for those of us across the pond, and yet more doping speculations, are struggling to gain positive mentions. And though the OrbitTower is generally being received well, it’s not benefiting from very much chatter. It’s not so nice to be sitting in the quadrants of red where chatter is negative or where chatter is low volume.

Join the Conversition team over the next two weeks as we notice the little, and the not so little things, happening at the London Olympic Games. We’d love to hear what events you’d like to see added to the chart!