I know, I know, the Olympics haven’t even officially started yet, so my post title is somehow misleading.
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself ;-)
However, UCLA does stand a good chance of winning the gold medal in blogging.
After 5 days spent offline on a very windy beach (I’m not playing the diva here, the weather was really chilly), I’ve just found a very interesting email from Kevin Roderick, Director of UCLA newsroom in my inbox.
In his note, Kevin introduced the latest initiative of his office (I did blog in the past about one of their YouTube videos): Bruins in Beijing, a group blog written by UCLA providing an insider view about the Olympic Games.
It’s from our athletes and coaches at the Olympics in Beijing (UCLA has 38 there, including alumni.) The bloggers are encouraged to give people at home an inside view of the scene in China; we’ll also use it to report news related to UCLA’s presence in Beijing. We’ll be accepting comments unmoderated.
This blog looks like a great way to add some interesting insights to the worldwide online conversation about the Olympics while engaging the UCLA community at large.
Very smart thinking, don’t you think so?
The Walter J. Lemke department of journalism at the University of Arkansas is providing an English version of an online journal that professor Hoyt Purvis is writing for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. The embassy is translating the journal, as well as others, into Mandarin to give the Chinese a sense of what visitors to their nation are experiencing.
Not as robust as what UCLA has, but still nice to see, especially with so many University of Arkansas athletes competing in the 29th Olympiad.