"I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I’m 23-years-old, and despite the successes I have had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner that people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public – it will not happen again," Phelps wrote in a Facebook post.

Reaction from fans on Facebook have been mixed. "With all that goes on in the world, I still can’t believe society freaks out over crap like this. You’re a stand-up guy and a tremendous athlete. I’m not going to fault you for being human. You’ll always have my support," wrote Whitney.

While other fans have been more critical of Phelps. "Michael, you have embarrassed me as an American who was so proud to show all my friends in Europe what an amazing guy you were. I have now put you in the same category as George Bush," wrote Joseph.
 

Still most fans seem willing to forgive Phelps. "Mistakes happen. Remember that we are all human and at times don’t make the best decisions. What we learn from experiences like these- can lead to tremendous growth on all levels," wrote Jasmine.
 

Say it with me: IDIOT!

While Phelps has admitted the photo is legitimate–and apologized to his fans–there can be no doubt that for an athlete of Phelps’ caliber, any scandal that involves drugs is going to have a hugely negative effect on his reputation.

To prove just how quickly a squeaky clean Google reputation can come crashing down, here’s a look at Michael Phelps’ Google reputation after just 24 hours!

If the swimmer’s sponsors decide that they no longer wish to be associated with a drug-taking athlete, Phelps could lose as much as $100 million in endorsements.

Some observations:

1. It didn’t take very long for the negative news to hit Google’s search results.
2. Despite many, many positive web pages about Phelps, this proves that a scandal can easily infiltrate the first ten links.
3. Google is already suggesting “michael phelps smoking weed” as an alternative search suggestion. What’s interesting is that this is not showing up in Google Suggest for the search box, which indicates that the “searches related to” algorithm at the footer of search results may be based on very recent search queries–with Google Suggest using a larger timescale for its suggestions.

Comments
 

Times of the Internet points out that (like many others these days) Phelps prefers Facebook to MySpace.

He has recently become the second most popular person on Facebook (the first being presidential candidate Barack Obama according to Mashable), and is expected to become the first before too long.

Not only has Phelps-mania swept the world (especially his native U.S.), but Facebook has been giving him some props themselves featuring a prominent banner on the site, linking to his profile page.

At the time of this writing, he has 1,102,939 fans.

He’s all over Digg (including a couple of stories on the front page), Del.ico.us, and StumbleUpon, and there’s a pretty astonishing catalog of Michael Phelps-related merchandise listed on eBay.

"Michael Phelps facts" is currently the number 7 phrase in Google’s Hot Trends.

Could Phelps be the most popular Olympic contender of all time? I bet he’s at least giving Dan and Dave a run for their money (no pun intended).

On a related note, the Internet has been a pretty popular place for users to get coverage of the Olympics themselves too.

One might be na

Michael Phelps
(Photo: Ciro Fusco/EPA)

In an analysis of online discussion on blogs and message boards, Phelps was the most talked about among more than 50 high profile athletes competing in Olympic basketball, gymnastics, beach volleyball and swimming.

Among these four sports, swimmers led in overall volume with 46 percent of the discussion, followed by basketball players with 38 percent. Gymnastics received 9 percent of the online discussion and beach volleyball 7 percent.

"It appears that swimming is benefiting from a number of interesting stories this year, including Michael Phelps’ race for gold, Dara Torres’ return to the games and Park Tae-Hwan’s win to bring home South Korea’s first-ever gold medal in swimming," said Jon Gibs, vice president, media analytics, Nielsen Online.

"As other events build momentum and the track and field competition begins, it will be interesting to follow the fan favorites online."

Other Olympic athletes creating a buzz online include basketball players Yao Ming from China and Americans Kobe Bryant and Lebron James as the U.S. and China met in the preliminary round.

U.S. swimmer Dara Torres was the fifth most talked about athlete followed by U.S. gymnast Shawn Johnson, French swimmer Laure Manaudo and U.S. beach volleyball player Keri Walsh.

U.S. swimmer Katie Hoff and U.S. volleyball player Misty May – Treanor rounded out the top 10.