The Shift-Time Blogging Project

Tweetup is the rather cringeworthy name for a meeting of Twitter users in a local area. Twitter, like most social networking services, brings people together who would otherwise not have met. And being people there’s often a desire to meet up offline. (See also the Shropshire Flickr Community who meet up regularly to take photos together.)

The Shropshire Tweetup started in June and plans to meet every month. The next one will be in Telford and the date is currently being finalised with the 18th looking popular.

You can get a snapshot of Twitter usage in Shropshire by looking at this search for activity in the area but it won’t make much, if any, sense. A better snapshot might be the Shropshire Twibe (again, excuse the terminology) which lists people who have explicitly declared themselves to be from Shropshire.

Like most social environments, the best way to get involved with Twitter is to follow people you already know and take it from there. But if you don’t know anyone casting the net wide with the above might help.

Just remember, at first glance Twitter doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It’s rather like recording random 10 second snippets of conversation in a crowded pub, editing them together and expecting coherence. The trick is to hang out in the pub.