1. Day and time. Thursday during Preview Day. Gates open at 3pm. Tweetup at 7.
2. Tickets. Get your fair tickets online for the #DeepFried discount price of just $5. You can’t attend the tweetup without admission to the fair.
3. Arrive at the Folk Festival Tent around 7PM for the start of the tweetup social. You’ll find it between Gate 10 and the Kerr Scott Building. Social is done around 8:30ish so that you can continue the hunt around the fair.
4. Scavenger Hunt.
• The app. What we started last year with the QR Code Mystery themed hunt is now expanded into a Plan Your Own Adventure style free form Trek with the SCVNGR app. Download SCVNGR now for your smartphone from any app store for free. Create a profile and connect your app to twitter. (note: no smartphone? no problem. You can use SMS to interact with SCVNGR treks.)
• The teams. Form one or cheer for another. Form teams from friends or even ad hoc from people you meet at the tweetup. Tweet your team name and members to @ncstatefair.
• The rules. Teams have from 3pm Oct 13 to Midnight to complete as many tasks as you can with your team. Winners will be posted on Oct 14 once we tally the points earned from SCVNGR challenges.
• The challenges. Challenges will be posted in a new “Trek” in the SCVNGR app by the NC State Fair profile on Thursday. Be sure to post your tasks to twitter  with SCVNGR and use the hashtag #Deepfried.
• The points. Teams earn points by completing more challenges. The team with the most points at the end of the night will be crowned “Deep Fried” Champions. Teams and points are posted on the Leader Board blog post.
• The smack talk. Get all up in the grill as it were of those other teams. Tag your tweets with #DFsmacktalk.
• The point. Discover fair stuff. See the sights. Have fun. Good luck!
5. Download or update your official NC State Fair app. Pro-tip: It has a handy map that may be of use in your hunting or otherwise exploring of the fairgrounds this week and next.
6. Charge up your phone!! Happy tweeting.
7. Enjoy free goodies and food from Deep Fried vendors. It’s all about Food, Fun and Friends. Enjoy old favorites and new surprises at the Tweetup. Read the Deep Fried blog for more info.
8. Mingle with the Deep Fried Fair Ambassador blogger finalists, cool entertainers and exhibitors. Create some origami. Discuss your favorite fried food options. Get social with people IRL.
9. Post photos and tweets from the social with hashtag #deepfried or #triangletweetup.
10. Follow @NCStateFair and @TriangleTweetup for news and interesting content.
11. Have fun, socialize, enjoy some good eats.

See you Thursday,
@theRab

Okay, tonight is the night! This is a bit of an update to the Meet Me At The Museum post. Here are some more details for all you Triangle Tweetup attendees. I’m just going to break it down with a quick list.

• Parking: Park in the Blue Ridge visitors lot (to the right) or main Museum parking lot (to the left), your choice. Both locations have paved walkways to the event.
• Site: The tweetup will be held outdoors beside the West Building. Just follow the posters to the Star Tent.
• Cost: Tweetup cost is $6 cash per guest, collected at the registration table. No need to print your RSVP ticket, we’ll have a list at the door. You’ll get a badge for entry to the movie, plus goodies like custom tweetup T-shirt and museum exhibit tickets!
• Learn: Look for Jennifer, Chad and Melissa to learn more about current and upcoming Museum exhibits and collections. They are are smart and passionate about art!
• Winning: You’ll get a raffle ticket to win cool things including Museum membership, Hot tickets to upcoming exhibits like Rembrandt in America and other surprises! NCMA is the only museum to see the new Rembrandt collection on the east coast this year.
• Yum: The @OnlyBurger food truck will be parked right beside the tweetup. They accept cash or credit. We heart their burgers and you will too! (Remember to #BackTheTrucks Raleigh!)
• Drinks: Choose from 3 flavors of awesome NC Beer courtesy of the excellent Lone Rider and Natty Greene’s! Southern Pale Ale, Guilford Golden Ale and Shotgun Betty Hefeweizen. We’ll also provide plenty of water. Please stay hydrated and drink responsibly!
• Explore: The Tweetup is an outdoor social and movie viewing but feel free to wander off through the West Building or walking trails if you want to go exploring with your friends.
• Snaps: The West Building features a photo friendly museum policy. Snap away and share your favorite pieces. Just leave the tripod and flash at home.
• Watch: The Social Network movie screening starts at 8:30pm. Your tweetup badge is your admission ticket. Here are some handy tips for the outdoor theater. Bring a blanket or chair.
• Tagging: Hashtag your photos and tweets with #ncmatweetup or #triangletweetup or both – we can’t wait to see your tweets and crazy movie commentary.
• Thanks: Be sure to tweet some love and thanks to our partners and sponsors who make the event possible! See the list in the sidebar of this blog. Here is a handy twitter list to help with the thanks: Your hosts, Jennifer (@jenniferwarner) and Chad from NCMA @ncartmuseum, Sumit and Skylar from @loneriderbeer in Raleigh, Sue (@NattySueRal) and Brandon (@nattysRalBrando)  from @natty_greenes brewery in Raleigh and Greensboro, and Brian (@bpfitzny) from @thesoringroup.
• Hosts: Say hello to your Triangle Tweetup organizers: Ryan Boyles (@theRab), Jeff Cohen (@JeffreyLCohen) and Jen Nixon (@Jennix5).
• Later: Connect with the museum online on their blog as well as twitter, facebook and flickr. We’ll curate and post the recap of all the fun. Please share your blog links etc.

Did I miss something? Please drop any last minute comments on Twitter to @TriangleTweetup.

We want you to experience something new and have fun. See you all tonight!
– Ryan

I want to meet you at the Museum. We’re hosting the Triangle Tweetup on August 19th. We’re very excited to team up with the digital marketing team at the North Carolina Museum of Art for the Tweetup this Friday night. There has been so much going on this summer, we though it would be neat to have a chance to slow things down and chill out at the art museum with a few old friends and maybe some new acquaintances. This is also a perfect chance to explore the uber modern West Building expansion. Bring your friends or a date. Bring your camera or smart phone. The new museum is photo friendly if you haven’t heard about it. We made this Triangle Tweetup the best low-cost way to spend your Friday night. Bring your blanket or chairs to watch The Social Network at 8:30 after the browsing and mingling portion of the Tweetup. For only $6 you will get an exclusive NCMA Triangle Tweetup t-shirt, 2 exhibit tickets to 30 Americans (for a return visit), admission to the summer series movie The Social Network that night, three thirst-quenching NC beer selections from Lone Rider and Natty Greene’s, and a raffle ticket to win a deluxe Art Museum prize pack. We set up an RSVP page on Eventbrite to pre-register and ask that you bring six bucks cash at the door (we did this to hold down the ticketing admin costs!). And come hungry too. The Only Burger food truck will be parked right outside of the West Building to provide dinner if you need a tasty, tasty dinner. Trust me, Only Burger lives up to the name. The Tweetup starts at 7pm at the West Building. See you at the Museum Friday night!

And as always, be sure to follow the great folks that help make the Tweetups happen!
@NCArtMuseum
@thesoringroup
@Loneriderbeer
@natty_greenes & @nattysueral
@onlyburger
@socialfresh
@triangletweetup

CarMax has been in Raleigh for more than a decade now. Recently the company launched new online functionality, but only in the Raleigh/Durham and Fayetteville areas. Now customers in these areas can hold a vehicle, schedule a test drive, apply for financing, initiate and pay for a transfer, select a MaxCare extended service plan, schedule an appraisal and get started on paperwork — all from any computer anywhere.

At this month’s TriangleTweetup, CarMax will launch a month-long social contest and throughout the month will give away iPad2s to four lucky winners. CarMax Raleigh Sales Manager David Brown will also give us a sneak peek at the new ads promoting CarMaxEasyShop.

Go ahead and start following @carmaxeasyshop to learn more about CarMax EasyShop. They’ll be live tweeting from the event and happy to hear early feedback from Tweet Up attendees on CarMax EasyShop and the contest.

This June 3-5, 2011, Triangle Startup Weekend is back (discount tickets are available here until May 4th) and will be held in the heart of the entrepreneurial community, the American Tobacco Campus, in Bay 7 on Friday and Sunday, and in the Tobacco Underground on Saturday (when everyone is hacking). Along with the usual festivities – pitching startup ideas to the crowd, forming teams around the highest vote getters and then building working web and mobile products over the course of the weekend – this year’s event has come awesome bonuses:

1. Local startup rockstars in the mix – Already confirmed as speakers, mentors or judges are such notable entrepreneurial community pillars as David Jones and Jason Caplain from SouthCap, Joe Colopy from Bronto, and Nathaniel Talbott from the Raleigh Ruby Brigade, just to name a few (the current full list is posted on the site). Also, if you haven’t seen George Junginger from Groupstory MC a Startup Weekend event, it’s a sight to behold in and of itself.

2. Location, location, location – Bay 7 and the Tobacco Underground are awesome event spaces and with this kind of capacity you can be sure to expect a great turnout. Which in turn = lots of awesome people, ideas and collaboration.

3. Off-the-clock Events – The first 75 people to buy tickets will accompany the organizing committee, top team and VIPs to the Durham Bulls game on Sunday, where they will all party in a private Startup Weekend deck that evening. Also hearing early reports of a Saturday night Pub Crawl in downtown Durham, and of course who knows what sleep-deprived entrepreneurs will come up with to fill the time in the late night hours.

So if you’ve got an entrepreneurial bug, odds are this event is a can’t miss for you. And there’s still time to get the discounted tickets until May 4th at http://triangle.startupweekend.org/tickets/

. Join us at the Tweetup on May 19th to discuss the event with Startup Weekend veterans or recruit new team members to make your start dream a reality.

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

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!