Meanwhile, perhaps the lead image, via reddit, sheds some light on why the riots happened. We were led to believe it was fans behaving badly after their team lost to the Boston Bruins in Game 7, when, in fact, a rampaging Tim Thomas was trying to destroy Vancouver and the residents simply panicked.

Considering Thomas’ sterling goal-keeping against the Canucks, perhaps the image isn’t that far-fetched, at least on a metaphorical level.

As for the healing process, it has already begun in earnest as Vancouver residents are eager to put the ugly incident behind them. Of course, social media has played a big role in the recovery process, with Facebook playing a big part in the organization of clean-up efforts — the page in question has over 17,000 likes — Twitter was also leveraged. While these kinds of responses are to be expected in today’s world, another area of healing that may surprise you comes from the avalanche of hand-written apologies notes from various residents.

Instead of posting apologies on the two social media platforms, relying on technology to do the deed, many people hand-delivered their message directly to the authorities in made-for-the-Internet moments that resonate almost as loudly as the kissing couple. The first wave of apologies came in the form of sticky notes left on a Vancouver police squad car. While the idea is a great one, the images are even better:

That’s not the only hand-written apologies that popped up around Vancouver, either. There’s also the “Citizen’s Wall,” a plywood barrier that’s covered in hand-written apologies and other self-incriminating messages. The entire wall can be seen over at Gigapixel, and it measures in at 877 megapixels (107,271 X 8,173). Gigapixel’s “image” of the “Citizen’s Wall” is made up of 472 separate images. An example of the notes:

And that’s just what Canucks fans tried to do. Meanwhile, Roberto Luongo goes unpunished.

While the riots themselves are not necessarily web news-related, the reaction to the destruction certainly is. Naturally, social media was where the majority of the reaction took place, and while Twitter was indeed blowing up — in fact, there are still two active trends related to the Vancouver riots — there were also videos uploaded that provided a clear picture of just how raucous downtown Vancouver got after Canucks were summarily dismissed by the Bruins.

First off, some highlights from the Twitter nation.

As indicated, there are two trends focusing on the Vancouver fun, one titled “Dear Vancouver,” and “#canucksriot,” using the standard hashtag presentation. Although there are many posts for each topic, two of the more ones from the “#canucksriot” sums things up nicely:

Further trending topic fun:

Perhaps my favorite of them all:

The fun continues:

Then there are the tweets that contain actual information about the situation, while others chastise their fellow countrymen:

And then there are the tweets that link to additional user-generated content, like the following:

The picture Jane Daly is referring to, and yes, her use of the term “rocket scientist” is quite fitting:

The video in question shows just how out of hand these things can get when you mix alcohol, a mob mentality, and the disappointment of losing:

Naturally, there are additional videos as well:

The lead image is courtesy of the Vancouver Sun, and quite a few of them do a great job of showing the absolute chaos Vancouver officials had to deal with.

According to comScore, Yahoo’s Winter Games coverage attracted 9.3 million unique visitors, more than NBC’s Olympics site (7.6 million unique visitors) and ESPN (8.4 million unique visitors). Yahoo Sports attracted over 17.5 million unique visitors over the week, more than double the visitors to its nearest competitors.

Meanwhile, NCBOlympics.com on MSN has generated more than 177.4 million page views, 414 percent more than the nearest competitor, according to comScore. NBC says visitors to its Olympic site spent more time and viewed more pages than visitors to Yahoo’s Olympic site.

On average, visitors to NBCOlympics.com spent 8.2 minutes per visit, 64 percent more than the five minute average for Yahoo users; and visitors to NBCOlympics.com on MSN averaged 27.5 pages per visit, more than seven times the 3.8 average pages per visitor for Yahoo.

While NBCOlympics.com leads in pages views and time spent, and Yahoo Sports leads in unique visitors, there is little doubt that the Winter Olympics have been good for both properties.
 

A full 1,400 buildings have been made visible in Google Earth’s 3D layer.  Textures appear to have been applied to all of them – we’re not talking about tall, gray blocks here – and the city looks quite nice.  It would be far from shocking if the Google Earth images (or at least word of their existence) make it into some official Olympics promotional material.

 Vancouver Library Square

On the LatLong Blog, Tamara Micner added, "I’m especially excited that you can now get a richer sense of Vancouver’s distinctive splendor, which marries advanced urban development with a dramatic coastal landscape."

In terms of some specific sights to watch for, she then continued, "You can see places like Moishe Safdie’s colosseum-like Library Square, the waterfront Canada Place (with its ‘Five Sails’), and Olympic venues such as the domed B.C. Place stadium."

This development may be a sign that some other cities will soon get the same treatment, or maybe not.  Either way, it seems to signal that Google is going to make the next Olympic Games a huge deal.