Calling all Central PA Twitterers, bloggers, and social media affectionados!  Our next installment of the increasingly-popular blogHarrisburg Tweetup is happening Thursday, September 18th beginning at 7pm.  As always, we’ll be in The Abbey Bar (upstairs at Appalachian Brewing Company).  Come out and share a brew with your fellow Harrisburg bloggers and local Twitter users!

The tweetups are casual and open to any midstate resident who has a blog or a Twitter account.  We meet on the third Thursday of every month — same place, same time.  If the weather is decent (defined as “fall crisp” and not “winter cold”) and ABC hasn’t closed the deck for the season, we’ll be outside on the deck.  If not, there’s plenty of room for everyone inside.  blogHarrisburg.com and floor9.com will carry the final word a few days before the event.

Users of all skill levels are welcome and encouraged to attend!  We’re a friendly and open bunch, and nobody should ever feel unwelcome because they’re not a master of their domain.  No matter if you’ve just signed up for Twitter, or just finished hand-coding a new SQL server in pure machine code, or fall anywhere in-between, we want you to attend!

The blogHarrisburg tweetups are about 30% business and 70% social gathering.  Most of the shop talk tends take place early in the night, so if you’re interested if comparing CMS engines, discussing advertising strategies, or any other topics related to social media and technology in general, arrive early.  The tweetup officially begins at 7pm, and although it officially ends at 9pm, most people stick around and make a night of it.

One final word — while there is no age requirement (patrons under the age of 21 are permitted in ABC until 10pm), some of the topics we discuss may be boring and/or “too grown-up” for younger children.

Hope to see you there!

@sarabozich gave us the local blogging & Twitter community a writeup in today’s Patriot News.  Specifically, it touched on the phenomenon that the blogHarrisburg Tweetups have become:  

“Before I met the Harrisburg Tweeters, they weren’t much different from the people I followed [on Twitter] all around the country,” Danielson said. “But once I met some of them in person, an actual relationship formed and it changes the way you interact on Twitter. Now that people have met me, they know I’m the young one, and for me that’s a blast, because a lot of times I feel like everybody’s kid sister.”

The blogHarrisburg tweetups have really made an impact on our local blogging & Tweeting community.  Sure, we all know each other’s screen names and general online personality.  But actually getting together in a casual social setting — where you can put a face to the URL — creates an irreplaceable, special community among us. After reading the article, it looks like everyone else feels pretty much the same.  When I launched blogHarrisburg back in 2006, this was exactly the kind of community I had hoped to help develop.  So to everyone who’s been coming out to the tweetups, and to anyone who’s planning on coming to a future tweetup, thanks!

Has it really been a month since our last Tweetup? You should know the drill by now- This coming Thursday- August 21- the Harrisburg Bloggers/Twitterers/Social Networking gurus decend on the deck at The Abbey Bar at Appalachian Brewing Company in Harrisburg from 7 til (at least) 9PM and discuss everything from blogging to responsible media to local [...]

This is your friendly neighborhood blogHarrisburg Tweetup reminder for August 2008:   We’re getting together this Thursday, 8/21/08, at our usual digs at The Abbey Bar (upstairs at Applachian Brewing Company in Harrisburg).  We get started around 7pm and wrap up around 9, though ABC is open as late as you care to stay.  As always, these meetups are open to the entire blogHarrisburg crew, as well as anyone from / around Central PA with a Twitter account.  If the weather holds — and it looks like it will — we’ll be outside on the deck for what will probably be the last summer-weather meetup of the year. You don’t have to otherwise know anybody in the group to drop by.  Fresh faces are always welcome — new people show up every month!  In fact, judging by the progressive growth of the past few months, August should be pretty friggin’ huge. This month we’ll be doing some unofficial roundtable chatting about advertising and revenue generation for blogs.  I don’t consider myself an expert on the matter, but since my site pulls in about 3x its hosting costs from AdSense, I figure I’m at least qualified enough to handle the basics.  And anyone with experience to share is welcome to contribute.  I’ll try to have a simple takeaway prepared with enough information to get new bloggers up and running with ads. So mark your calendars, tweet your friends (self-appointed “Tweetup cheerleader” @Kathleen_LD, I’m looking at you here), and drop by for an evening of food, drink, and social merriment!  Feel free to post any questions or feedback in the comments.

CORRECTION: The date was previously incorrectly listed as 8/14.  The correct date is 8/21. When: 7-9pm Thursday 08/21/08 Where: On the deck of The Abbey Bar (upstairs at Applachian Brewing Company Harrisburg) Who’s Invited: Anyone from Central PA with a blog* or Twitter account First off, thanks to everyone who showed up at July’s meetup!  It was great hanging out with the regulars once again, and getting to meet a whole slew of new faces was inspiring to say the least.  It’s really quite impressive to see this big of a community forming in what is arguably a medium-sized city in a very rural state.  Judging by the steady growth of the past meetups, August’s promises to be even bigger. This meetup’s business end will focus on advertising; specifically, how you can make money from your site.  This will be an open, roundtable discussion and not a formal presentation.  Anyone with experience in the area is welcome and encouraged to drop by and share. As everyone knows, we do this on the third Thursday of every month.  The meetup is open to everyone from Central PA — not just Harrisburg — who has a blog, podcast, or any other form of self-published content, as well as anyone from the area with a Twitter account.  Whether you’re pulling 10k unique visitors per day or just contemplating launching your first blog, whether you’ve amassed a six-digit follower count on Twitter or just signed up for your account today, you’re cordially invited to attend. Our meetups are about 60% social event and 40% business.  Typically, most of the shop talk happens towards the beginning of the event.  Typical business topics include promotion, advertising, site design, hosting, and industry trends.  Don’t expect full-fledged Keynote presentations or lengthy lectures — we’re a very casual group that has very casual meetups.  Group participation and roundtable discussions are the norm! Socially, the meetups are a great way to get to know your fellow local bloggers & Twitterers.  A profile picture is one thing, but spending a warm summer evening out on the deck discussing everything from regional politics to the local music scene over some of ABC’s specialty brews (or craft sodas, if that’s more your speed) is loads more fun! * - Incidentally, by “blog” I mean “pretty much any site with original content that is self-published online”.  So if you’ve got an independent news service, photo community, podcast, or anything else in that ballgame, you’re included.  Come join us.

bH will be up and down throughout the day while I make some behind-the-scenes tweaks.  The first is a minor DNS issue that, unfortunately, I can not possibly speed up.  The site will be unavailable for a while (you’ll probably get a blank page or a generic “Coming Soon” message) until the new nameservers kick in.  This usually takes a few hours, but may take up to a full two days.  Sorry. The second issue is a server move, which I can’t start until the DNS issue clears up. Hopefully everything will be back to normal no later than 5pm.

Wow.  Last night’s meetup at The Abbey Bar was easily the best-attended yet!  I don’t have an official headcount, but there were easily two dozen people in attendance.  Off the top of my head, the night saw @EdGrohl, @Dani_Pa, @KathleenLD, @mattyfo, @shawnfarner, @rorowe, Daniel Victor, Jersey Mike, Josh Karns, Bill Bostic, Sara Bozich, Roxbury News, Scott Giambalvo, and even the editor of the Central PA Gazelle stopped by (I never would’ve guessed who is behind that!).  I know I missed some people here — rest assured your omissions are due to my poor memory and not some nefarious status quo — so please comment if you were in attendance!   We started these meetups unofficially about a year ago.  Our first meetup ever was at Roxbury News’ Third Street office.  Back then it was just the blogHarrisburg contributors and the discussion was a lot more focused on how we could help develop the local blogging / social communities.  Starting with our third meetup, we decided to open things up to anyone locally who had a blog, and our fourth meetup was also open to our Twitter brothers & sisters.  For the fifth meetup (am I counting right?), which was last night, it was clear that word was really getting out. Thanks to everyone who came out and joined in the festivities! If you didn’t make it this time, remember that we’re in the same place (The Abbey Bar, upstairs at Appalachian Brewing Company) from 7-9pm on the third Thursday of every month.  Things are very relaxed, and everyone in Central PA with a blog (or podcast, or anything similar) or Twitter account is welcome. @EdGrohl posted some pictures of the event.  Anyone else?