If you are a Twitter fan, you might have noticed something different about the Olympics this year. According to the International Olympic Committee, athletes will be allowed to tweet to their hearts content throughout the games. That is, as long as they are talking only about their individual/personal experience at the Olympics.

Imagine watching your favorite Olympic athlete compete for the gold and then hear directly from that person on how he or she was feeling. This is an exciting concept, but challenging at the same time. It will be hard for the Olympic Committee to monitor all the Twitter messages coming from athletes, and I am sure that someone is going to get in trouble for saying the wrong thing.

Right now the whole idea seems to be in a state of probation. Although Olympic competitors do have the freedom to use the service as of now, things could change if it starts to jeopardize the games at all. I envision teams looking at opponents’ Twitter accounts to see if they can find some way to gain an upper-edge. Whatever your stance on the subject is, right now Twitter history is being made by Olympians. I call it the ‘Social Olympiad – media with stamina’.

I was excited to catch the action while it’s here. I tried to start following the United States ski teams, but my first experience with finding Olympic athletes on Twitter was more challenging then I expected. Unless you know exactly what person to search for, finding sporting team members can be extremely time-consuming. That is until the guys at http://twitter.com/Pro_Athletes started providing a free service for finding Olympians. This group not only has an ever-updating list of athletes entered into the Olympics, but also contains many Pro Sporting events in general. “@Pro Athletes” have even organized everyone into categories, and separated them out by sport for easy browsing.

Check out the dialogue that is going on right now. Everyone has the ability to become part of the global conversation. It’s just another way social media is bringing the world together. From hip hop legends, to poets, to scientists, to mathematicians, to Olympic Athletes; through social media we can all listen and learn from each other.