Tweetups and location-based services go hand and hand. Attendees can check-in at a Tweetup and share with their soical graph about the experience and even use location-based services to say they’re own the way to a tweetup. Part of the #TriangleTweetup team is a little bias when it comes to location based apps and would love for everyone to check-in with TriOut but we know there are a few more location-bases apps that the community uses such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, Brightkite and more.

For the TriangleTweetup we’re encouraging everyone to check-in at least using both TriOut and FourSquare. If you check-in with TriOut you’ll receive a special #TriangleTweetup badge along with 10 points that will count towards your weekly points total. Your points can be used for the current TriOut leaderboard contest this week.

Foursquare has a badge called a “Swarm” badge that you’ll receive after 49 people have checked into a location. We have over 200 people RSVPed  for the event and I’m sure we have a least 100 of the attendees are using TriOut and/or Foursquare. So collecting the swarm badge should be a no brainer. Note: I don’t want to encourage check-in cheating but it was noted on the following http://www.4squarebadges.com blog

The first 49 people do not get this badge. The way to fix that if you are one of them is to checkin to another close location and check back into the main event.

Meaning you could check-in let’s say … Tyler’s Restaurant & Taproom then come back and check into @Bronto to collect the swarm badge if you’re one of the first 49 to check-in using Foursquare. #justsayin. What would be really awesome if we had 250 people to check-in to collect a Foursquare superswarm badge! #justsayin again…

Drive safe and don’t forget to check-in when you arrive at Bronto.

Photo by: AbbyLadybug

If you’re wondering how this started and by who, read this: A Queen and King Story: 1st Triangle Tweetup.

Who will be the 2010 #TriangleTweetup King and Queen? We’ll find out tonight!

There are two parking decks near Bronto a North deck and a South parking deck. It’s recommended that you park in the South parking deck (see map below). There will be free parking along the street. Let’s hope for a sunny, I-40, 147 accident free day on Thursday. Drive safe, no tweeting while driving #TWD and we’ll see you on Thursday.

Bronto Software, Inc.
Washington Building
324 Blackwell Street, Suite 410
Durham, N Carolina 27701
View Larger Map

Parking Map via http://www.americantobaccohistoricdistrict.com Click for larger image.

Agenda

6:45 doors open and registration at Bronto Software Inc

Welcome 7:15

Tweetup Improv by Zach Ward of DSI Comedy Theater – if you have never seen Zach do improv you don’t want to miss this and for everyone else, you know Zach is going to be funny and awesome.

Application Demos:

• Jazzy Chad – Notifo & Pushly (Also welcome back to NC @JazzyChad! )
• Lawrence Ingraham – @LawPower – TriOut – Something new you’ve been asking for.
• BlogAds – @TheBlogads –  Twiangulate.com and taghive.com
• Anil Chawla - Tweetymail
• Donald McMillan – Schmap

Photo by: John Rees

Social Media 101 Workshops:

• Email Marketing
• Twitter
• Facebook

Photography by:
@josh_hofer and @jreesnc - You might have your next great avatar shot at the #TriangleTweetup.

The hashtag is always: #TriangleTweetup

Photo by bronto software

Your Entry fee: Reminder to support the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina:
We’re supporting the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, as they kick off the Kids Summer Stock Program and asking everyone to bring two cans of food. Here’s a list of the most needed items (PDF).

More news to be announced this week later this week and we have received tweets that our past #TriangleTweetup King and Queen will be present looking to crown a new King and Queen for 2010.

We’re looking for a few more sponsors for the event, if you’re interested please email us at contact@ourhashtag.com or call 919-200-0929

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.

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

pici.me enables guests at any social gathering to generate buzz about a hot ongoing event by sharing pictures via twitter. Currently in beta, pici.me provides an intuitive self-serve way to capture and tweet pictures of your attendees. The tweets, which can be modified to suit any event, not only serve to create buzz (and trend your #hashtag), but also promote any and all event sponsors or causes.

Created by @covati (also the creator of idek.net), pici.me is being debuted at the TriangleTweetup on April 30 at Bronto.

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.

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is there are two parking decks near Bronto a North deck and a South parking deck. The bad news, Wayne didn’t check the calendar to see if there was a Durham bulls game the same night of Triangle Tweetup.

What does this have to do with Triangle Tweetup? It means you’ll have to pay $4.00 to park in the parking decks. It’s recommended that you park in the South parking deck (see map below). There will be free parking along the street but with the game and around 250 tweeple coming to American Tobacco Campus around the same time, I’m sure it’s going to be hard to find a free parking spot. If you feel lucky, give it a try.

I hope this doesn’t stop any tweeple from attending and let’s hope for a sunny, I-40, 147 accident free day on Thursday. Drive safe, no tweeting while driving #TWD and we’ll see you on Thursday.

Bronto Software, Inc.
Washington Building
324 Blackwell Street, Suite 410
Durham, N Carolina 27701
View Larger Map

Parking Map via http://www.americantobaccohistoricdistrict.com Click for larger image.

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