#MostTweetsEver

The World Cup is such an awesome time!  The fans are intense!! Very intense.  Maybe I am a fair-weather soccer fan... I don't really follow during a normal season.  HOWEVER, the excitement around the World Cup is electrifying and I think it's cool that even casual fans of soccer want to be a part of it!!

And, it is electrifying all over the globe.  A great way to see that take shape is over Twitter. Last week's Brazil vs. Chile game attracted - get this -  over 16.4 million tweets!! This makes the game the most tweeted game of the World Cup thus far, and possibly the most tweeted sports event EVER!!  Let's put this into perspective.  Sometimes we throw around numbers like "16.4 million tweets" and don't really comprehend how many that is!  There are about four million people living in Los Angeles.  So this would be like every single person in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago tweeting - and then some!!

Twitter Handles such as "TwitterData" take note of the trends on the site during crucial moments of the game.  For example, in the Brazil vs. Chile game, the most tweeted moment - raking up almost 389,000 tweets in a single minute - was the moment Chilean defender Gonzalo Jara missed a crucial penalty kick allowing Brazil the win.  

It's also amazing to see the impact of how global Twitter truly is!  USA may be out of the World Cup, but we can still cheer for the winner of most tweets!!

Death By Twitter Rampage!

I'm telling you, these Death By Twitter posts will just never end.  This week's offensive ranter is British soccer star Ashley Cole.  England's Football Association- the target of the angry tweet - fined Ashley £90,000 (aka $145,000) for what they deemed bringing "the game into disrepute".  Ashley's rash reaction was in response to an FA commission questioning the evidence he gave in defending his Chelsea teammate John Terry against a charge of racially abusing an opponent.

Per usual, the tweet was deleted soon after its posting.  But we all know in the social media world, you can delete but you can't hide.  Even with its short-lived initial digital presence, the tweet attracted more than 17,000 retweets and countless screenshots around websites.

Unlike some of our Olympic Death By Twitterers, Ashley escaped a ban from the Football Association, but we are still waiting to hear if his Chelsea team will add to the fine or even decide on other kinds of punishment. 

Which do you think is the most effective consequence for these offensive tweets?  Fines or expulsion?  Or is there a better solution altogether?

Another Olympic Death By Twitter

Apparently Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella is not an avid Social Media Diva reader.  Or if he is, he chose to ignore my last post and my advice to think before you tweet!!

Thus, sadly, I have to report another Death By Twitter catastrophe.

On Monday, Morganella was expelled from the Olympics for tweeting an offensive comment after his team's 2-1 loss to South Korea.

He just couldn't bite his tongue (or hold his fingers?) and had to share with the world through Twitter that he wanted to beat up South Koreans.  While the actual Tweet isn't being reported much- translations being reported include slurs such as they should "burn", they are "a bunch of monogloids" and they are "a bunch of mentally handicapped retards".  

ARE YOU KIDDING!?  That is not even a joke.  While ill suited and wrong, you can at least make a mental leap on how Papachristou thought she was being clever last week.  This, however, Morganella's tweet is just blatantly violent.  

Not only was Morganella sent home from the Games, but his Twitter account was deleted and he may be banned from FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association).  

I hope I am wrong, but something tells me we haven't seen the end of Olympic Death By Twitter.