Growing Demand Blog

While our Santa Monica headquarters is just yards away from Southern California’s sunny beaches, we’ve been busy as biathletes, shoveling heaping helpings of frosty, powdery Internet onto the worldwide conversation about this year’s Olympic games.

Through our technology and collaboration with our worldwide network of media partners, it’s likely you’ve seen or participated in the exciting dialogue and interaction that’s now a mandatory part of traditional coverage of the games.

Here are just a handful of examples of our winningest winter games moments so far: 

• CBC made outstanding use of our Pluck social media platform to power forums that enable fans to connect with Canadian athletes.
• Pluck is driving comments and recommendations on Olympics-related and other stories across the CBC site.
• During live events, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to follow or join the conversation in live chats via CoveritLive.
• And check out Canadian athlete blogs with comments and recommendations.
• Canada.com is using Pluck comments on its articles covering the games.
• Vail Daily, the hometown paper of Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, offers Pluck comments and recommendations on its articles.
• And over at ESPN.com, check out live coverage of Canada vs. USA hockey using CoveritLive.

In addition to fueling the global conversation about the games, Demand Media’s award winning consumer websites offer a variety of useful and entertaining content to help you get the most out of the Olympics.  Are you in Vancouver for the festivities? Our very own eHow can teach you how to see Downtown Vancouver in a day. Want to do some hiking or biking in the area? Check out the comprehensive list of trails and outdoor recreation areas in the Vancouver vicinity on Trails.com.

If you’ve been inspired by this year’s games, and are considering going for Olympic victory in the future, we’ve got you covered with plenty of resources to start your journey to the gold. eHow will teach you how to get off the ski lift that first time, and LIVESTRONG.com can help prepare you with info how altitude affects your athletic performance. And if you like the idea of winter sports but none of the Olympic events powder your slope, you can review this list of the best winter sports that aren’t part of the winter games.

Of course if your idea of winter Olympic spectatorship is simply kicking back with a Slurpee and making fun of speed skating uniforms, you’ll find plenty to enjoy on Cracked.com—including the top ways to enjoy the worst Olympic events and Cracked Topic Pages on the 2010 Games, Figure Skating and, of course, Canada.

In this year’s winter Olympics it’s clear: audiences are hungry for interaction and information. We’re proud to be helping the world’s top media companies serve their online visitors and providing consumers with the tools and information they want. This year’s games have been more engaging than ever—and for us, they’ve served as the perfect backdrop for Demand Media to fulfill its purpose as the engine for what the world wants to know and share. So whether they’re strolling Santa Monica’s sunny beaches or lining the slopes of British Columbia, we think our media partners and consumers are the big gold medal winners in this year’s coverage of the games.

Dave Panos is Demand Media’s EVP of Social Media Platforms. Follow Dave at http://www.twitter.com/davepanos.