Today's Brandlympics round-up kicks off with Google's homepage salute to the artistic gymnastics men's rings.

Olympians Take On Brand Police

Plenty of brands that haven’t signed on to sponsor the Olympics are plenty annoyed with the heavy-handed methods of the London Organizing Committee to seemingly keep anyone from saying the word Olympics or doodling the famous five rings on their notebooks without heavy fines and public embarrassment coming their way. But it’s not just corporations and brands that are annoyed. It’s also the Olympians themselves. Olympic athletes are forbidden from mentioning any brand names in the lead up to the Games and then during the Olympics themselves. Now a few of them are speaking out, particularly on the Olympics' favored platform of Twitter. A few tweeted protest messages Sunday against the regulation that keeps them from mentioning the brand name whose dimes and dollars have helped them get to the Games. According to the New York Times, American high jumper Jamie Nieto was probably the most brash, tweeting, “I am honored 2 be an Olympian, but #WeDemandChange #rule40 @NBCOlympics It’s time for Olympians 2 be compensated! I am a PRO Track & Field Ath!”Continue reading...

Social media, yet again, is being hailed and blamed as the latest public uprising straddles the virtual and physical worlds.

Recently heralded as the most reliable source for breaking news in the News Corp hacking scandal, as well as earlier during the Arab Spring, the current riots in the U.K. have overflown onto social media, where citizen (and professional) reporting, and safety messages to the public — while the 24/7 stream of unchecked and unverified communications were simultaneously being blamed for helping fuel the fires.

On the third night of rioting (sparked by protests over the police shooting of alleged drug-dealer Mark Duggan in the Tottenham section of North London), the mayhem has spread to Hackney and Birmingham, England's second-largest city, with scores injured and hundreds arrested. The chaos includes reports of a teenager in Glasgow arrested for reportedly using Facebook to incite riots there.Continue reading...