At the tweetup will be food, fun and merriment. Tyler’s Taproom (@tylerstaproom) and Bronto will be providing delicious eats. Expect free beer and wine, of course #NCBeer is represented as always, featuring People’s Porter from Foothills Brewing (@FoothillsPub) as well as a California brew, Hop Head Red from Green Flash Brewery (@greenflashbeer). We’ll enjoy silly games together like Cornhole, Giant Jenga! and the old standard, Foosball (think you have what it takes to take me?!). This is all offered to our Triangle friends as a thank you for your support and camaraderie over the last five years; five years of figuring our how to work together in a more social way, online and face to face.

But wait there’s more!

We’re hosting a Mini-Ignite within the tweetup. Each year at the Bronto spring tweetup, we feature demos from local startups and panels with social media experts and new practitioners. So we thought, let’s do a few lightning talks. Ignite is spreading throughout NC now… sparked from Raleigh, then Charlotte, Durham, and now Asheville. Great people spreading ideas openly, and quickly. We have a theme this week. Drive. What drives you? Here’s a preview of our 6 Ignite speakers, each will share what drives them in 5 minutes with 20 slides that auto-rotate:

@GregoryNg: “I know everything about you. And that Knowledge is Power.”
@nutellaisevil: “I’m an atheist, but Jesus is my co-pilot”
@JaelDesignsInc: “Shattering the Box”
@jhibbets: “The path to the open source city”
@theRab (yours truly): “#TriangleTweetup: A Community History Lesson”
@timarthur: “Plugging into The New Watercooler”

The Triangle Tweetup is all about building community. Free of charge. Your entry fee is an open mind and a desire to learn and teach. Join us. Get out your smartphone and share tweetup moments with the #TriangleTweetup hashtag, as we have done together dozens of times over the last few years. RSVP to attend via triangletweetup5.eventbrite.com.

But you didn’t think we were done yet? There is even more!! The official tweetup after-party will be held at Tyler’s Taproom downstairs, complete with Anniversary Tweetup Drink specials (available all day) including #NCBeer from @TriangleBrewing!! See you there.

Parking tips: Directions to Bronto. Front Door is for Bay 5 on the street level across from University Ford. There will be balloons and a security guard to greet tweetup goers.

We’re can’t wait to see you Thursday evening for another great event.

Sincerely,
@triangletweetup @theRab @BrontoCaroline @timarthur @mistersugar @bronto @colopy @tylerstaproom @ignitedurham @igniteraleigh @dipikakohli

(Hint: scroll through and “Load more” to see all the action)

• A social contest announcement from our sponsor CarMax with chances to win iPad 2s. That’s right, plural.
• You are the Photobooth this year! Use your favorite social photo sharing apps: Instagram, Color, Foursquare, etc. to answer questions with other people in the form of a photo. Share it on twitter and win!
• Wii “Just Dance” Off – Get your team together now! Win gift cards and certs. Team Brooks Bell… Team Capstrat… Team Bronto… Who’s gonna bring it?!
• DJ Hero Battle – Think Guitar Hero face off but with 2 Turntables! Head to head DJ battle with mashed up music.
• Tribe discussion – What are the best examples of local companies adding game components to their products or marketing? Gamification, get it? What are the best national / global brand examples of social engagement through gamification? GaGaVille anyone? 
• Learn more about a high stakes race to create something great – with real opportunity: Triangle Startup Weekend.
• Ask a Bronto expert about how to win at Email marketing, you know if you’re into that whole ROI thing.

The tweetup is going to be a lot of fun. Food, beer and drinks will be provided by the awesome folks at Bronto and Tyler’s Taproom. Giveaways for gamers!! Free RSVP is still open. This parking help is handy. We’ll see you at Bronto at 7pm tonight!

It must be Springtime. It’s tweetup time. Bronto is hosting the first Triangle Tweetup of the year at their offices in the American Tobacco complex in downtown Durham. This is now an annual tradition with our friends at Bronto and we are looking for ways to celebrate local creativity through social networking at the tweetup. Give your ideas in the comments on twitter hashtagged #triangletweetup. We’ll share more event details in the weeks leading up to the event to be held May 19th. Be sure to RSVP on eventbrite and be sure to share the event link with your friends and followers on twitter. There are already over 60 people joining us! It will be a fun evening.

See you there!
@theRab, @JeffreyLCohen, @BrontoCaroline

The “@Bronto” Photobooth shots by tweetup photographer @josh_hofer

See more interesting photos on flickr.

We wouldn’t want to let our tweeps down when it comes to cool (free!) stuff. At the N.C. State Fair, we have many awesome sponsors, agriculture commodity groups, entertainers and friends who have donated their time and swag to the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, and we want to highlight them here.

In addition to the other artists and entertainers at the tweetup, we have one more to add to the list. You may have heard us raving about the L’Oreal Paris Color Space tent that debuted at the Fair this year. (You can check out the deep-fried bloggers’ glam makeover experience here.) Lucky for us, L’Oreal Paris will have two consultants on hand at the tweetup to provide mini-makeovers for tweeps to get extra avatar-ready. They’ll also have a free Telescopic Mascara for everyone who receives a makeover.

Now, onto the swag!

Rolling giveaways – Throughout the night, we’ll have contests every 15 minutes for:

* Tickets to the last weekend showing of West Side Story at @NCTheatre and dinner at The Duck and Dumpling courtesy of Empire Eats
* Promo codes for the @StateFairApp
* A free weekend stay at Hampton Inn Raleigh Midtown (@HampInnRaleighM)

Swag bags, full of:

* Reusable tote bags from the N.C. Pork Council
* Custom @TweetupBadges
* 2009 Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup posters
* Free coffee coupons from @McDonalds and @McCafeYourDay
* Green Pledge Station pass to complete the Green NC scavenger hunt (to earn a free State Fair t-shirt)
* Soda coozies from @FoodLion
* Gear from the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina (@FoodBankCENC)
* $10 in coupons from @SubwayFreshBuzz
* Key chains from the N.C. Egg Association
* @NCStateFair bumper stickers and magnet photo frames

And thanks again to these additional sponsors:

* Mimi the Clown
* Michelle Harrell, @Poodlemama
* Al the Artist
* Chef’s D’Lites
* The Murphy House
* Woody’s City Market
* N&T Concessions
* @TriangleTweetup
* pici.me by Adam Covati (@covati)
* Steve Trash (@GreenSteveTrash)

We think this is sure to be a great time, so register today to get in on the fun!

The Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup is upon us, and we are busy getting all of the final details in place. We have lots of fun stuff planned for the Folk Festival tent (including artists and entertainers who will be there, the awesome food you’ll be able to sample and the deep-fried Tweetup Badges we’ll have for the first 250 attendees), but we also have one adventure planned for tweeps outside of the tweetup’s home base.

We’ll have a Twitter-themed scavenger hunt that will take you up, down and around the fairgrounds in search of Twitter-related attractions, stops and hidden treasures. The #deepfriedhunt will have 10 stops, but you’ll only be required to complete five of the tasks. Once you complete the hunt, you’ll have until 9:30 p.m. Thursday night to head back to the Folk Festival tent to receive your prize, a 2009 N.C. State Fair T-shirt modeled off of the Fair’s vintage-inspired Web site and posters:

Complete our deep-fried, Twitter-themed scavenger hunt and this bad boy is yours.

Here are just a few samples of things we’ll have you searching for:

* A Fail Whale’s second cousin on the Midway
* The Twitter bird’s home on the fairgrounds, if it were to compete in the livestock shows
* The blue-ribbon opposite of #FAIL
* A recycled, environmentally friendly tweet

Does that get you curious? We’ll have more clues, of course, for you at registration, in both a paper format and an online format. We’ll have a mix of tasks (for example, some stops may have a picture option for scavenger hunters with camera phones) so everyone can get in on the fun, and all of the stops will require you to tweet out an answer marked with the hashtag #deepfriedhunt. We’ll use that to keep up with our scavenger hunt tweeps across the fairgrounds.

Be sure to register for the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup to get in on the fun. Also, since we’re in deep-fried crunch time before the tweetup, check back tomorrow and Wednesday for your remaining round-up of details, including the Techy edition and Swag edition. Stay tuned!

So now our tweeps know about the artists and entertainers coming to the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, as well as the awesome food they’ll be able to sample. But what about the all-important tweetup staple known as the tweetup badge?

No sweat–we have you covered!

This is actually one of the elements of the tweetup that we’re most excited about, mainly because we’ve never gotten badges before. And we have to admit, these are pretty snazzy.

We want to give a big shout out to Rich Drake, owner of Tweetup Badges, for his help in designing the badges. He was awesome to work with and really made the entire process fun and easy. It was his idea to use the red-and-white checkered pattern we use in the header of the Deep Fried blog, and we made sure to include an area for attendees to write in their names, as well as their Twitter handles.

On the back of the badges you’ll see Tweetup Badges’ logo and tag line, “helping you put names to faces in the offline world.” We’re excited to do just that at the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup. Also, Rich helped us place a QR code on the back that will take you straight to the N.C. State Fair Web site for all the Fair info you’ll need during your visit. Rich explains how a QR code works on his blog:

The QR code on the back of the tweetup badges is meant to be a time saver (and it’s cool). The concept is simple. With a phone equipped with a camera and a QR code reader, you simply scan the code on the back of the tweetup badge and the phone takes you to a website, in this case, the N.C. State Fair Web site. There are QR code readers available for most “smart” phones, and most of them are free.

Want a badge of your own? We have 250 badges to give out to our tweeps, so be sure to register at deepfriedtriangletweetup.eventbrite.com.

As we get closer and closer to the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, we wanted to give you a little more information on what you can expect at the event beyond lots of tweeting, lots of friends and lots of N.C. State Fair lovers.

Last week we told you about some of the fun artists and entertainers we’ll have out at the first Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup. (Who is getting a Fail Whale painted on their face?)

If you haven’t joined in on the fun yet, be sure to register for the event here, and come out to the Folk Festival tent on Food Lion Hunger Relief Day Thursday, Oct. 22, from 7 to 9 p.m.

This update is the all-important “deep-fried food sample” edition. Since it wouldn’t be a deep-fried tweetup without some deep-fried food, we made sure to roundup some tasty food samples for our tweeps.

If food is the number one reason people come to the N.C. State Fair and tweeting is the number one reason people come to tweetups, we expect some serious “nom nom nom” tweets out of attendees. (Don’t worry: Sodas and water will also be provided to wash down all of this deep-fried yumminess.)

These four foods are also making their N.C. State Fair debuts this year, so come out and be a part of history in the making:

• Funnel cake fries from N & T Concessions. Just like the perennial Fair favorite, but with a portable twist. Who can resist a cross between powdered sugar goodness and the convenience of a french fry?
• Chicken-fried bacon from Chef Thomas’ Chef’s D’Lites. Just like it sounds, these strips of bacon are covered in batter and deep-fried like chicken-fried steak.
• Buffalo chicken rangoons from Raleigh’s own Woody’s City Market. These bite-sized, deep-fried dumplings (similar to the crab rangoons available in many Chinese restaurants) will be filled with some of Woody’s famous buffalo chicken.
• Chocolate-covered bacon from The Murphy House. Bacon lovers will have to contain themselves, since we’ll have not one, but two twists on the ever-popular bacon. A mix of savory, sweet and salty, chocolate-covered bacon got some rave reviews at our pre-Fair media lunch, but you’ll have to come decide for yourself. (Steph’s Strawberries will also have chocolate-covered bacon for sale on the fairgrounds near the Hobbies and Handicrafts Building.)

We were lucky enough to try out the chocolate-covered bacon at this week’s preview event. We can’t wait to see you at the tweetup and hear what you think!

We’ll be “releasing” these details every few days leading up to Thursday, Oct. 22, when four cans will get you into the fairgrounds for free. (If you don’t have four cans on you, you can always pay admission at the gate.) Keep an eye on the NC State Fair blog, on the Twitter account and on here on the Triangle Tweetup site to get the inside scoop, and be sure to register for the event to join in on the fun.

First up: The entertainer edition. We’ll have fun artists and entertainers from around the fairgrounds join us at the tweetup. But, of course, they’ll have a special social media twist:

* You’re heard of wearing your heart on your sleeve…but what about wearing a Twitter bird on your face? Mimi the Clown (who owns The Melody Maker entertainment company) will be on hand to work her magic with face paint and a brush. This won’t be just any facepainting booth, however; Mimi will adorn tweeps’ faces with Twitter birds, Fail Whales, the Twitter symbol, hashtags and more social media icons.

* Michelle Harrell, who has appeared at previous fairs as the living statue “Statue Viva” and returns this year with Michelle’s Magical Poodles, will be at the tweetup. Michelle uses social media to track her travels across the country as the “Poodle Mama” on YouTube and Twitter.

* Al the Artist will be on hand in his cartoon car to draw caricatures on specially designed tweetup posters. These would make fun avatar/profile pictures. (Hint, hint!)

* Our Twitter friend Adam Covati will bring his Twitter photobooth Pici Me to the tweetup. Adam created the photo generator, which, according to his site, “enables guests at any social gathering to generate buzz about a hot ongoing event by sharing pictures via Twitter.” Well, we know this event will be hot–after all, it is deep-fried.

Stay tuned for more information coming up on the food, swag, scavenger hunt and more. We’ll see you there!

Join us on Thursday, Oct. 22 at the first Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup at the N.C. State Fair. The event will be held in the Folk Festival Tent from 7 to 9 p.m. on Food Lion Hunger Relief Day. Bring four cans of food for Free entry to the fair. Register here for free for the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup.

The event, co-hosted by the organizers of Triangle Tweetup, will be held in the Folk Festival Tent from 7 to 9 p.m. on Food Lion Hunger Relief Day.

“We’ve built great relationships over the past year with our social media followers, and we wanted to organize an event that would help them enjoy the Fair in a new social way,” said Wesley Wyatt, fair manager.

During the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, attendees will be able to sample deep-fried Fair food, interact with Fair entertainers, participate in a Twitter-themed scavenger hunt and enter to win prizes throughout the night. The event is part of a growing trend of events where participants have face-to-face gatherings with people they follow on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. It is also one of the first Tweetups hosted by a state fair.

The co-host, OurHashtag, has held 10 Triangle Tweetups during the past two years. The company’s partners Wayne Sutton, Jeff Cohen, Ryan Boyles and Kipp Bodnar are active members in the local social media community, and have planned several social media events including Ignite Raleigh and monthly Triangle Social Media Club meetings. Past Triangle Tweetups have included a charitable component to the main event.

“By holding the Tweetup on Hunger Relief Day, we are able to gather at the Fair without charging a registration fee, and can continue to help our community through charitable contributions,” Sutton said. Anyone who brings four cans of food to the Fair on Thursday, Oct. 22 will get in to the Fair for free.

The N.C. State Fair was the first fair to use Twitter, and currently connects with fairgoers on a variety of social media sites, including:

• Deep Fried @ the N.C. State Fair Blog: www.ncstatefair.org/blog
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ncstatefair
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ncstatefair
• MySpace: www.myspace.com/ncstatefair

The Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup is one of several new activities added this year to appeal to the state’s tech-savvy community. Other events include the TXT-O-LYMPIX texting competition and nightly video game contests.

More information about the Fair can be found at www.ncstatefair.org. Space is limited to the first 500 registrants.

For those of you reside outside of NC we call the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and surrounding areas the Triangle and this week we having Triangle Tech week. Every day starting Monday August 3 thru August 8 there will be a different Technology/ social media/ geek event to attend. Also we’re going to have a few special prizes for some of the attendees who make it all six events such as an iTunes gift card and more. To verify you attended all six pick up a card starting tonight at the Triangle Tweetup at Edge Office. The card will have all events dates listed. Next find one of the OurHashtag partners which includes, Kipp Bodnar, Jeffrey L. Cohen, Ryan Boyles or Wayne Sutton and we’ll mark your card. On Saturday at BarCampRDU if you attended all six events we’ll have the prize for you.

If you’re tweeting about the events be sure to use the tag #TriTech short for Triangle Tech Week. Here’s the run down of the events along with the organizers and more information url for Triangle Tech Week.

Monday, August 3 – Triangle Tweetup, 7:00 P.M. at Edge Office – http://triangletweetup.org via OurHashtag

Saturday, August 8 – BarCampRDU at Red Hat via Dave Johnson aka @snoopdave on Twitter and team.

Ok, it’s going to be one long but fun, exciting week in the Triangle and remember the tag is #TriTech but some of the events have their own tag too such as #IgniteRaleigh & #barcamprdu. Be sure to check out the Social Carolina calendar as there are other events in the Triangle this week too. http://socialcarolina.org. Also be sure to look at each events website or Twitter account to see if there are any changes. Have a great week!

There is a brief agenda for the evening, followed by plenty of socializing (or networking if you’re looking for work or clients). First, we want to publicly congratulate Jazzy Chad on his new gig with Twitter. Don’t worry, he’s staying in Raleigh, and will be helping them out part-time. According to this blog post (written by former Triangle resident, Twitter employee and our friend Doug Williams), Chad was such an integral part of the Twitter community in both his creation of Tweetgrid and his customer support, that Twitter took notice.

The second item is the use of professional tools for Twitter. With the new release of the Twitter 101 Guide for Business, and the current crop of tools to manage not just one account, but multiple accounts, we will discuss what works for different cases and why. This is the perfect opportunity to learn more about Twitter, and other social media tools, for your company. Bring your questions and your networking skills. Tweetups have a great mix of people with a variety of experiences.

And finally, we will also get psyched up for Ignite Raleigh, which is happening Wednesday. We hope to see you there, but if not, we’ll probably see you somewhere this week.

Thanks,
The OurHashtag Team
Wayne, Kipp, Jeff, Ryan

For those of you who are new to twitter and don’t know the history Twitterrific was one of the first, if not the first desktop Twitter application available. It was launched on January 15, 2007 (see the version history here: http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific_history) The iPhone version of Twitterrific was one of the first twitter iPhone apps too and was included in the iTunes App store [iTunes link] when it was first released.

Let’s not forget about the twitterrific bird. For a long time, people thought the twitterrific bird was Twitter’s logo and many people still use it when showing their tweets on blogs … illegally. The bird does rock, but iconfactory makes application icons so they’re just good at what they do.

I had a chance to interview a few members of the iconfactory team about the history of the company and twitterrific a few months ago, take a look, so you’ll know who they are when they arrive on Thursday.

One of the masterminds behind Twitterrific is Craig Hockenberry @chockenberry and he tweeted about the new http://twitterrific.com website that gives us a glance of the new Twitterrific 2.0 application for the iPhone. It has been almost 2 years since the iPhone version of Twitterrific was released and we’re excited that the first public demo of Twitterrific 2.0 for the iPhone will be on display at Triangle Tweetup.

So to @talosman Talos Tsui – @gedeon Gedeon Maheux – @chockenberry – @piraino Anthony Piraino – @ifcorey Corey Marion and the rest of the iconfactory team, thank you for your contributions to twitter, making a great app and attending Triangle Tweetup.

See you on Thursday

@WayneSutton

Their clients—public and private companies, as well as non-profits and government agencies—rely on DesignHammer for an Internet presence that helps differentiate their organization from the competition. They design, develop, and host websites of varying complexity, including online stores, content management systems, and custom e-newsletters.

This locally owned and operated company was ranked as one of the top ten Internet Design and Marketing firms in the Triangle Area by the Triangle Business Journal for 2005. Follow them on Twitter @DesignHammer to see what they are up to and thank them for sponsoring TriangleTweetup.

And here is the list of door prizes:

Blu Seafood (Twitter: @bluseafood): $25 Restaurant Gift Certificate

Bronto (Twitter: @Bronto): BrontoNation Gift Packs

Carrboro Creative Coworking (Twitter: @CarrboroCowork): T-Shirt (woman size only)

Chatham Journal (Twitter: @chathamnc): Coffee Mugs and Hats

Claustrophobia (iTunes link) (Twitter: @sonofalink): Promo Code for Free iPhone game

Crazy Like That (Twitter: @crazylikethat) T-Shirt with buttons & stickers

DSI Comedy Theater (Twitter: @DSIComedy) Improv 101 Class and Comedy Show Tickets

Edward McKay (Twitter: @EdMcKay) $25.00 Bookstore Gift Certificate

LoneRider Beer (Twitter: @LoneRiderBeer): 1 growler (64 oz) to be filled at the LoneRider’s brewery.

Raleigh Grande (Twitter: @RaleighGrande) Movie Tickets

Schmap: T-Shirt and iTunes Gift Card

Wilmington/Cape Fear Visitor’s Bureau (Twitter: @visitcapefearnc): Summer is Almost Here Beach Packs

Make sure you thank our door prize sponsors with Tweet love. Items listed subject to change.

If you would like attend Triangle Tweetup 2.0 and was not able to register, please leave a comment below and we’ll be in touch if things changes. You will be contacted in the order of comment date.

Also a big thank you to those who have registered already.

UPDATE: 4/21/09
After doing a site review we have opened registration for an additional 50 tickets. You can register here: http://triangletweetup20.eventbrite.com