Demi Moore stopped a desperate suicide attempt by re-posting an ominous message, a University of California, Berkeley student evaded Egyptian prison by posting the word "arrested," and Gainesville residents who had never met in person partied together at a local Japanese restaurant. Though seemingly unrelared and in different corners of the world, these three events have one thing in common - Twitter.
The Gainesville Tweetup, a gathering of people who are friends on Twitter, was held at Shooting Star, 203 SW 2nd Ave., on Thursday night.
Michelle Hipps, a 22-year-old UF graduate, got the idea for the event when she saw a tweet about a meet up for Twitter users in New York City.
"The tweetup is for both personal and professional gain," she said. "I get to meet the people I've been tweeting with and I'd also like to make some professional contacts."
Hipps said that Twitter is not just a way to spit superficiality in 140 characters or less, like others say it is. To her, Twitter is more about what people are thinking, and not about what movies they like or what books they've read. The content is less important than the actual thought process of a person writing a tweet.
Hipps said her generation is not as superficial as the ones that came before it. People now want to delve deeper and find out if they think the same way or share the same ideals.
"What Twitter is really asking you is, 'What are you thinking?' 'What's capturing your attention?'" she said.
Twitter provides a good medium for college grads to network with companies looking for new talent, especially in the field of media and communications.
"Twitter is great for networking, "Hipps said. "It's amazing for networking."
At the event, a crowd of about 25 people drank beer, cocktails and enjoyed free appetizers from 6 to 8 p.m., at the second of what Hipps hopes to be many future Gainesville tweetups. The first event was held at Stubbie Shirt Pub in downtown Gainesville about a month ago.
Brian Smith, 28, Video Operations Supervisor for UF, came to the event to network with other local Gainesville tweeters.
Smith thinks Twitter is a socially acceptable way to meet friends, having already met the people through tweets provides an instant ice breaker. Twitter allows users to create a personal connections as they go along, as opposed to Facebook, where you already have that personal connection from real life.
Twitter is different from other social media sites in that there is no profile to look at, no persona to delve into and no pictures to browse. Twitter accounts are simple. On Twitter, you get to know people through their tweets.
"I've met some good contacts and made a few decent friends out of it," he said.
Smith met Gary Ritzenthaler, a PhD student in mass communication at the University of Florida, at the first tweetup. The men found out they were colleagues and have since become good friends.
"Now when I see him around we have something to talk about," he said.
Ritzenthaler, who teaches a journalism class about social media, sends his class updates and links to assignments through Twitter. He said Twitter encourages social interaction, and allows people to get to know each before they meet in person.
Ritzenthaler, who teaches a journalism class about social media, sends his class updates and links to assignments through Twitter. He said Twitter encourages social interaction, and allows people to get to know each before they meet in person.
At the tweetup, Twitter users wore name tags that sported their real names and their Twitter names. A makeshift photo booth was set up by "Phobooth," a Florida photo booth rental company, complete with funny hats and plush guitars. The booth took digital pictures that printed out immediately in glossy paper. In true new-media fashion, the photos were instantly posted online, and they can be seen by searching for #gvilletweetup on Twitter.com.
Twitter's popularity is increasing at an explosive rate. Hitwise.com, a Web site rating service, ranks Twitter as the fifth most visited social networking site in June, behind Facebook, Myspace and Youtube. Last year it was 84th. Ninety three percent of that growth happened in 2009.
Charlotte Porter, a 20-year-old UF journalism student, came to the tweetup for extra credit in her class, but said she met people she would like to start following on Twitter. Porter is a fan of community-based internet activities, like multi-player online games. She said it's interesting to observe how people interact online as opposed to in real life. She said people online have a tendency to be less polite due to the anonymity that the computer allows, but they're also very forgiving as well.
"You can say some things to people online that you couldn't say wouldn't necessarily say to someone's face, and they will probably take less offense to it," she said.
The debate is up on Twitter's influence on journalists. Porter can see the good and bad angles.
"You really got to see what was happening inside of Iran during the elections through Twitter," she said. "Twitter gave people access to firsthand accounts that wouldn't be available from any other source."
However, she said there was no way to verify these things because there was no news media there to fact check.
"We knew something was going on there because of the pictures and video, but you have to take the accounts with a grain of salt and not as factual information, she said."
Hipps, the organizer of the event, is planning another tweetup in the next couple of weeks. She assigned an official Twitter account, @twtup, so that people in Gainesville can follow it. She said she would like to do a tweetup every few months at least.
Check out video from the previous tweetup in June. The Alligator can be found on twitter at @TheAlligator.
