A few months ago I told some friends that I didn’t want to be known as just a twitter guy. My reasoning was that I do more than just tweet. I understand how to use twitter for journalism, marketing community building, etc., but I also do social media marketing, online video shows, blog setup and event planning. (shameless plug) . Of course all of this was before twitter jumped the shark. This was before Oprah and Ashton Kutcher showed up, and before the mainstream news media organization started seeing the power of twitter.
As someone who has been on twitter since July 14, 2006 (Find when you joined here: http://whendidyoujointwitter.appspot.com), I can say that I’m not surprised to see twitter grab all the attention it has lately. But even I didn’t think it would be this big. The other day I was on FriendFeed and the “unofficial king of Friendfeed,” since we’re in the crowning people kings right now, Robert Scoble, asked a question about five major twitter conferences planned for 2009. I knew about two of them, but here’s the list of all five.
http://training.oreilly.com/twitterbootcamp
http://www.thetwitterconference.com
Here’s Scoble’s Friendfeed discussion.
I’m listed as one of the The Characters/speakers for the http://www.140conf.com in June and from the looks of it the 140conf is going to rock. I can’t wait to meet some of the other characters in real life as well. The other conferences look awesome too, focusing on topics like twitter for business, how to use twitter to listen and respond to customers, twitter and journalism, corporate tweeting strategies and using twitter for marketing.
Now I’m looking at my TweetShops.com site and wishing I would have done more with it. I don’t think it’s too late, as so many people are joining twitter every day, and they need help finding their way (another shameless plug). Regardless, as an early adopter, I’ve seen a lot of old trends become new trends and old tools die to be reborn as something new. http://tweeterboard.com went away and now we have http://wefollow.com.
old – 
new
And as far as tweetups go, I was part of a group that organized one of the largest tweetups ever. We had about 300 people registered on a Thursday night.
The tweetup featured a social media panel, free drinks and food from local sponsors and twitter application announcements from Iconfactory, pici.me, and Beak. Also in attendance was TweetGrid‘s own JazzyChad. This is all part of North Carolina’s strong social media and twitter development presence. Read: 5 twitter apps from the Triangle: @idek, @tweetgrid, @easytweets, GeoTweeter &
just launched @getencouraged
Either way, I’m glad to be a part of 140conf and looking at the buzz from the other conferences. As we plan future conferences in Raleigh, we may consider a twitter-focused one.
If you have been on Twitter since 2007, have you ever thought, “If I knew twitter would be this big, I would have done …..”
