I’ve just read a couple posts by proponents of Vancouver’s social media scene – specifically people associated with Raincity Studios – that they should be given the same access to Vancouver’s Winter Olympics members of the media already have. Should they?

Raincity’s Dave Olsen argues that they want to create an “entirely different sort of coverage than the accredited media provide.” More specifically:

We are not looking to cover events per se but are instead interested in covering the cultural stories, athletes’ families’ stories, and stories from fans who saved and traveled from around the world for this experience. In other words, we plan to encourage and aggregate fan coverage of the individual’s “on the street” experience of the Games.

After reading this paragraph a few times, I still don’t get it. Aren’t they’re planning on doing pretty much exactly what the mainstream media already does?

Digging deeper, some of the initiatives they want to do include “photo walks and aggregate fan-made content for the enjoyment of a worldwide audience,” and in terms of compensation, “…aside form the occasional stipend, we do this work for no pay.”

In essence, this is ultimately another argument into bringing the “Web 2.0″ world together with the DTM (dead tree media, a term I’m borrowing from Wellington Financial’s Mark McQueen). As both forms of media have begun to embrace each other – every newspaper likely has their own Twitter account, blogs have begun to break news, etc – the journalism world still has to hedge each instance new media encroaches onto its territory carefully.

I have nothing wrong with people using technology to bring communities closer together and make communication more efficient, but I think VANOC has to draw their line in the sand with social media-centric firms.

First off all, if VANOC were to open the door for Raincity, it’d have to do the same with the flurry of other social media firms who wish to do the same thing. Remember, this is the Olympics and a lot of growth in the social media world can happen in two years. There could be several, even dozens of other company’s banging on the press room doors.

Rather, I think it’d be a better fit for Raintree to work with VANOC’s media partners to suggest ways they can connect with the online world during the Olympics. Vancouver’s media will already do a fantastic job of telling the stories of the Games, but some free advice from some online experts likely wouldn’t hurt. You did say you’d do it for free (minus that stipend, whatever that would be), right?

I don’t think not having Vancouver’s social media makers at the “big boys table’s” going to distract from the main event, but I think there needs to be a better way these two world’s can work together in these types of situations.