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Sunday, June 15, 2014

I'm sorry if my tweet offended you...

140 characters...

Any hashtag you could ever imagine...

The entire world is your audience... a billion registered users and growing...

Twitter is the perfect medium to get your message out and get your viewpoint in front of the masses.

With this awesome power and responsibility come great downside and great potential for misinterpretation and miscommunication.

The truth is though, not all tweets are seen. In fact, most tweets are never seen and are simply lost in the 'twitterverse' due to the overwhelming number of tweets that are flying around.

For a tweet to be seen there must be something about the tweet that catches the eyes of other tweeps.

There must be something about the tweet that stands out and rises above the saturated mist of other tweets.

Sometimes the tweet is in response to something that just happened... sometimes the tweet is to evoke emotion and stir up passion.

When either of these occurrences happen, the entire message doesn't come across in a single tweet. Even in a group of tweets. The background information is missing and the level of prior knowledge is non-existent.

This is when the misinterpretation and miscommunication happen...

Not on purpose and not with malicious intent or desire to offend. It is unfortunately just a byproduct of this powerful and far-reaching tool.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry if my tweet offended you.