Tweeters Celebrate Olympics With #080808

by Heiky | August 8, 2008 at 09:17 am

850 views | 17 Recommendations | 17 comments

An emerging movement is taking twitter by storm. People are celebrating the day August 8,2008 (aka the official opening of the Olympics Games in Beijing) by tagging their tweets with the hashtag #080808.

People on twitter are also setting up their profile pictures with a speaking bubble with the hastag inside.
It is now a second trending topic on summize.com, the first one being Olympics. It is also the first tag under the tweme cloud at Twemes.

If you want to twitter about what you are doing, where you are celebrating the Opening of the Olympics, or why you think it's a special day, then you should add this tag to your tweet.

On the other hand, if you just want to twitter about the Olympics, try #bg08 (we use this for NowPublic), #Olympics, #olympia, #beijing 2008, or the many other tags that surround the Olympics.

Using "#080808" (pronounced "tag 080808"), a symbol for the date of the Olympics opening day, August 8, 2008, is "just for fun, a way to 'write down' the day," said Steven Lin, one of the movement's co-founders, who works for official Olympic Web site Sohu.com as a project manager.

Founded by Lin and two other Internet industry managers, they conceived of the idea on Wednesday, and only began propagating it on Thursday. Lin, who tweets as "flypig," said they chose #080808 for a number of reasons but for one above all others: it was easy to type, including on a cell phone.

The number of #080808 tweets are not known, but last time I checked, about 4 tweet surfaces every second (pretty crazy).

You can also tag your flickr photos with #080808 and #bg08.

Find out more information at http://tag080808.com/

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jessica.lam

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:18 on August 8th, 2008

Heiky, good to know how to keep on top of all this action. Thanks!

Jarrett Martineau

at 09:30 on August 8th, 2008

Wish we'd gotten a nod in the NYT piece for our very own #bg08 tag (for the Beijing Games 08)!

Amy Judd

at 09:32 on August 8th, 2008

It's great that people are getting so involved around one event!

Uwe Paschen

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:46 on August 8th, 2008

Heiky, I like this story. It's good stuff.

remember mettacara!

Nancy Flamingo

at 17:09 on August 8th, 2008

This century's special date.

Nancy Flamingo has contributed a photo to this story.

g3houdini

at 17:20 on August 8th, 2008

Great idea to post online for the Celebration of the Olympics!

g3houdini has contributed a photo to this story.

javaloca

at 18:37 on August 8th, 2008

As graphic designer, the excitement of a special date, 08080, formed by all complete cirlcles is too good to be missed. Started as that idea and the excitement of Beijing Olympic Games opens on that date, I dedicate this personal typographic project in loving memory of my dad who happened to have the same birth-day as mine, the 8th. Shown 1 of four, complete series are featured in: http://desaingrafisindonesia.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/080808-personal-project/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/javaloca/2727735242/

javaloca has contributed a photo to this story.

juggles

at 20:51 on August 8th, 2008

I had another special day with my fiancee and shared 8 delicious dates with her. Then came the inspiration for the image and the creativity jut flowed as powerfully as as norwegian waterfall. The photographs were taken on 08.08.08 for the flickr group.

juggles has contributed a photo to this story.

Dim67

at 20:59 on August 8th, 2008

This picture was taken as part of a contest on the Flickr S5700 user group. The contest was about the date 08-08-2008 and the calculator was just sitting on my desk...

Dim67 has contributed a photo to this story.

ybbswc

at 21:55 on August 8th, 2008

twitter 080808

ybbswc has contributed a photo to this story.

xkonstantine

at 01:31 on August 9th, 2008

I'm taking a photo a day for a year (project 365) so I obviously couldn't miss the opportunity that 080808 presented! These special days wont last forever, after all, the last one in this century will be 121212...!

xkonstantine has contributed a photo to this story.

xkonstantine

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 01:36 on August 9th, 2008

Heiky, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Glazgow

at 02:29 on August 9th, 2008

Glasgow celebrated the start of the Beijing Olympics on 080808 with a colourful exhibition of Chinese culture at Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

These fantastic musicians from South China excited the crowd with their dancing and drumming.

Glazgow has contributed a photo to this story.

KENTALOG

at 02:33 on August 10th, 2008

We married on 080808.

KENTALOG has contributed a photo to this story.

alarmwork

at 09:10 on August 10th, 2008

This Olympics Beijing logo, i just make it 3d form from SketchUp software. I just want to be part of it,because my country involve the event. SUPPORT our country!!!

alarmwork has contributed a photo to this story.

Cassandra West

at 10:47 on August 10th, 2008

On August 08, 2008 I took photos of 0 and 8 from signs and made this photo and took a photo of me holding it for my 365 self-portrait for the day and for 08-08-08! Thanks for looking!!

Cassandra West has contributed a photo to this story.