Like a lot of people, I've been mostly watching the 2010 Winter Olympic Games from the comfort of my own home on my living room television.
Entry to my personal Official Olympic Action Spectator Centre is free, plus there are unlimited snacks and cold beverages (or as much as my wife has stocked in the fridge), dress is pretty casual (Batman pajamas preferred), and security is very light. I usually only pat guests down for anyone holding an extra Toblerone chocolate bar.
But it's likely the exact same way most of us have enjoyed the various Summer and Winter Games over the years, because until 2010 there was really no other choice.
Until this year, Olympic fans who weren't actually lucky enough to be at the Games live had no other option but to catch the action from places like a sports bar or at home from the "official" network who paid a ba-zillion dollars to broadcast the event.
And if the event was being held in some wacky time zone, it was either get up zombified at 3 a.m. to watch other people sweat, or watch the events rebroadcast hours after you've already learned the results.
But coverage of the 2010 Games has been very different.
Well, for one they've been right here in the Pacific time zone so I've enjoyed live coverage at times I'm usually required to be conscious and functioning.
But for the first time, social media and the digital age have added unprecedented content and coverage for Olympic fans to enjoy.
Everyone from VANOC and Tourism Whistler to official broadcasters NBC and CTV has been using Twitter, Facebook and other social media to blast out Olympic news, facts, impressions and other content.
They've offered iPhone apps so you can keep track from your cell phone, and widgets for your desktop so no matter where you are - work or home - you're getting up-to-the-minute coverage of qualifications, medal wins and every Olympic tidbit.
But it's not just the official sources that make this the first digital Games, but rather all the citizen journalists out there in the Olympic crowds who have cell phone cameras and Facebook/Twitter accounts of their own.
Sure, social media like Facebook and Twitter were around during the Beijing Games, but this is the first time that social media has been deployed in a free and democratic society. Well, as free as the IOC and VANOC will allow.
Officially, the IOC doesn't allow anyone not accredited as a journalist to act as a journalist.
Blogs, Facebook and Twitter are considered non-journalistic outlets of personal expression, but only to the extent they don't include sound or moving images of the Games, photos posted in sequential order, audio interviews with Olympic competitors or play-by-play accounts of an event -- whether a person is posting from the Games or from their home a thousand kilometres away. A digital media monitor is supposed to be patrolling the Internet for any infringements of intellectual property rights.
You see the economics of the Games rests on the sponsorships and broadcast rights that could possibly be tarnished by a glut of underground coverage.
So on the one side, the global nature of the Games seems to fit with this new "people's voice" style of digital coverage, while one the other hand, it seems to jeopardize the whole business model of the event.
With the 2010 Games nearly over it still remains to be seen if social media will change the way most people experience the Olympics.
Either way, my living room will always be the best seat in the house.
