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Six years ago, sports on the net came of age at the Sydney Olympics. The major media networks poured millions at a fast growing web audience and the standard was set for online sports news — complete with audio and video streaming — that is standard today.

Tomorrow, the 2006 World Cup in Germany promises to provide the same coronation for "social media" — the catch-all term for the user-generated content produced in blogs, podcasts and online photodiaries. An estimated 185,000 new websites have been launched to cover this World Cup — an astonishing proliferation of online creative content that would have been unthinkable before the rise of blogs and podcasts. And it's not just small-fry blogs: Nike, Google, Yahoo, along with a host of major newspapers and broadcasters are creating blogs and podcasts to freshen up coverage of the world's biggest sporting event.

But the real power of social media is in the ability for anyone to publish their own World Cup coverage and create their own radio or video shows. So here is TIME.com's guide to the best and strangest World Cup media, created by the people for the people:

Blogs
The granddaddy of World Cup social media, WorldCupBlog.org was started by three fans to share thoughts on the 2002 Mundial. For Germany 06, the team has recruited bloggers from all the 32 participating nations to create blanket blogging coverage.

Harvard University's GlobalVoices.org might be better known for fostering blogging debate on human rights and social issues but it also serves up some cracking world insight on the World Cup, including this cri de coeur from Call Me James blog in Brazil: "And from now on, this blog is almost totally devoted to football and the World Cup. As it is the most important competition in the world. It is because it is the World Cup, godammit! And if you don't like football, the problem is yours. Who cares about you?"

For a dose of pure English football lunacy, look no further than Who Ate All the Bratwurst — a brand new blog packed full of England footie news, with honorable mentions to the other teams taking part, video clips of World Cups past and tips on how to buy your Wayne Rooney tribute "Ouch My Metatarsal" T-shirt.

Photos Communities
Yahoo's Flickr social photo sharing service is the must visit for keeping up with the latest user-generated World Cup photos. The site is just warming up at present with pre-tournament images but prepare yourselves for deluge of fan color starting tomorrow.

Podcasts and Videopodcasts
What Flickr is to photos, YouTube is to video. There are already 706 pieces of home video World Cup previews, tributes and mashups, including this look forward to kick-off, complete with a stirring militaryesque soundtrack, cut by Polish contributer Nasami, and a scarily amazing quick peek at South Korea's WC anthem performed by boy band Shinhwa and their legions of unhinged fans.

Not surprisingly, the Net is crawling with slickly produced World Cup audio updates. Frankly, we prefer the quiet desperation of SoccerShoutOut — a strictly amateur podcast offering where, in a recent episode, the producers begged their listeners to email the editor of a leading soccer website to start carrying their podcasts. "We want to make some money and we'd like to quit our day jobs because we like talking about football so much," the hosts explained. Who can argue with that?

• MATTHEW YEOMANS
• The best — and barmiest — in online football fandom