Going hiking with strangers at McRitchie was only the beginning of the social phase in May. No thanks to my own curiosity and with some help from Edmund, I got hooked on Twitter – the micro-blogging platform that took the world by storm.

Thankfully, Singapore’s Twitter craze was hitting the peak when I joined, and in a short span of time, I managed to make a number of new friends via the platform. It wasn’t long before there was news of an ‘official’ Singapore Tweetup in the works.. Would be nice to be able to put a face to all the Tweeps who’ve been listening and replying to my rants.

Number One at Geek Terminal

Organized by @CarlGriffith, it was held at The Geek Terminal in Raffles. I almost didn’t go, but decided on a spur of the moment when I left my office that night. When I arrived, it was already packed with people – an estimated 90 tweeps showed up, most of them in their own little pockets but mingling freely with everyone else. The social spirit here was honestly quite amazing.

Unfortunately, there was a bit of hoo hah as the venue owner decided to make use of the event to introduce a commercial online modeling reality TV show (Supermodelme.tv) without informing the attendees beforehand. Seems like a number of tweeps were unhappy that a public social event was hijacked for commercial means. Well frankly, I’ve got absolutely NO issues with any commercial endeavour where I get approached by models offering me their name cards . I thought the event was a blast – as I got to meet a cool number of awesome people too .

Our little Twitter badges that goes "Hello, My username is.."

@FoOie and @nikipaniki (The pretty Niki Torres)

@ctham (The principled Callan Tham), @FoOie and @Evelyn_SMM

@FoOie, @belindaang (Twitter Guru Belinda Ang) and @kensapp (Internet Marketer and hardcore Trekkie Ken Sapp)

Our organizer @CarlGriffith (Carl Griffith) with @robin_low (Robin Low)

Fellow gamers @clicktokill (Yin) and @gnoserif (Aron Gan)

@micamonkey and @WeRecycleIT

SuperModelMe.TV!

Following the success of this sgtweetup, @inrsoul decided to organize one himself – a smaller cozier event to be held one week away. Which I also happily attended..

Follow-up at Zsofi’s Tapas Bar

Zsofi’s Tapas Bar is a quaint rustic little outfit located in Little India. It was a far cry from the modern Geek Terminal setup, but a much more personal as we sat on the floor, huddled around low tables over our drinks and finger foods as we chatted the night away..

@lennel (Lennel Tan), @wahliaodotcom (The Photographer Kin Leong) and @gnoserif (Aron Gan)

Cheers!

@FoOie and @minghao (Koh Ming Hao)

The ever radiant @debbieseraphina

@FoOie, @stephietan (the Fashionista) and @laelene (Mary Qin from California)

@arulprasad (the random Twitter dude who saw the sgtweetup sign while passing by downstairs and decided to come up and say hi!) and @wahliaodotcom

Deep in conversation..

As I write this, I’ve attended a few more (and missed quite a few others), as more tweeps began going through the trouble of organizing their own. These Tweetups are an awesome idea, showcasing the power of social media networking and the ability to make friends, contacts and have fun in real life – all through the help of a digital medium. It was great getting to know you guys.

Cheers to Twitter <3! .

Photos credit to @inrsoul aka Kevin Lee – who unfortunately isn’t in most of these photos cause he was mostly behind the lens!