After months and months of anticipation by athletes and fans alike, the 2012 Olympic Games officially begin this Friday. For most fans, however, the world's most global sporting event can be tricky to catch -- many of the competitions will take place during the workday, when posting up in front of a TV is tough. Not to worry, the modern surfeit of online info is more clutch than ever.
Above, Mashable details the best ways to access quality social and editorial content online from now through the closing ceremony on Aug. 12.
Social media will play a bigger role than ever for this year's Olympics, thanks largely to its eye-popping growth since the last summer games in 2008. In that span of time, Facebook's user base has grown from about 100 million to more than 900 million since then, and the number of posts per day by Twitter users worldwide has exploded from about 300,000 to 400 million.
Making sense of social networks' deluge of information from fans, media and athletes can be tough, so we've got some tools and tips to get you started.
But while we love social media, it alone isn't enough to follow an event as massive and multifaceted as the Olympics. That's why we've got a range of sources for top-notch editorial content, from columnists to reporters on the ground.