Is Wimbledon always held in London ? - your tweet

A friend of mine owning a watchshop,  asked me once  [almost 30 years ago !] ; ‘when will Sharjah matches be held in India’ – he was under the impression that like Test and ODI, Sharjan was another format of match…. – the same year he went to live Saudi in search of a job is altogether non-issue.

In present day World, people love to communicate and use various forms in doing that… even a smile is an effective tool of communication – some send group SMS and some send Good morning or daily mails to their groups…… there are various Social networking sites and micro-blogging sites.  In March  2006,  the first public message went up on twitter by Dorsey  and it was  "just setting up my twttr".

In 1980s, Sharjah dotted on the cricket world by conducting matches at the desert.   Sharjah is one of the emirates of UAE covering 2,600 km² - the matches attracted Indian and Pakistani settlers there and the tournaments became huge success.  It was here that Javed Miandad smashed Chetan Sharma for a last-ball six to steer Pakistan to victory in the Asia Cup final….. I still remember the match and it took years to sink that loss out of memory.

Sure you know of ‘tweets’ or perhaps tweet regularly – it is the message on Twitter, the premier online social networking service and microblogging service.  Tweets are  text-based posts of up to 140 characters.  Unregistered users can read the tweets, while registered users can post tweets through the website interface, SMS, or a range of apps for mobile devices. Tweets are publicly visible by default; however, senders can restrict message delivery to just their followers. Users can tweet via the Twitter website, compatible external applications (such as for smartphones), or by Short Message Service (SMS) available in certain countries. Users may subscribe to other users' tweets – this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers.

In any form of Social networking whether it be – Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogs or for that matter websites, whatever written is one’s own information or view and need not be authentic.  You can post anything and depending upon the contents, there could be audience, views, responses, comments and more……….. but would one’s ignorance invite the wrath of people !!!!! – yes is what a 21 year old lass found to her dismay.  While most intelligent things might go neglected, her dumb query had nearly 7000 retweets, i.e., people copy-pasting it and sending to their circles with their own comments.

 The woman who became the butt of jokes on twitter, had tweeted -  "Is Wimbledon always held in London?".  Most of the retweets ridiculed her and some foulmouthed and harangued her – that is the darker side of the Internet…. – the virtual mob derided her and sort of forced her to eventually delete her account.   

Whether it was the stupidest comment or whether Georgia Ford, a Sunderland FC fan who described herself as a 'canny lass' – was unintelligent need not be the decision of other users.  Everybody is entitled to their share and one really do not know her strengths, if it was amusing or funnily silly, or it that displayed her ignorance of most obvious – either educate her or simply ignore that message and go on with better work -  certainly others do not have the liberty to ridicule and mock her beyond a point

By some account - "Is Wimbledon always held in London?" is not totally naïve….

The common reference – Wimbledon – is to the Championships  of the oldest and perhaps the most prestigious  Tennis tournament held in the grass courts of Wimbledon.  It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877.   Technically, Wimbledon is a district in the South West London. Analysis reveal that Wimbledon was a local Government district in Surrey from 1866 to 1965 and perhaps by some count, matches prior to 1965 were held in Wimbledon, Surrey and not Wimbledon, London !!!!.

During the IPL5, there were campaigns everyday for the best tweet and the no. of tweets were also shown on the counter – so much so promotion of the event in every form – and the rivalry between IPL teams spilled over the social media platform too.  There were intensified campaigns seeking support of fans through the various online forums.   They tried to sell more by providing the opportunity to fans to interact with their star players, teams like Delhi Daredevils, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings left no stone unturned to exploit the opportunity to add more supporters.  So much of money flowed into digital media as well besides the commercial and ground promotions….

So are you going to tweet on this ??

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.