Tweeters ready to tap into bar scene

Virtual friends who usually converse over social media will swap their keypads for proper conversation this Friday when the first Rotorua TweetUp - #RotoTU - is held.

Jonathon Hagger, known as @HagmanNZ and @Everydaymanager, has set up the event for any Rotorua tweeters. It will take place this Friday at Seismic Bar.

"There are 15-20 people in Rotorua who have been using twitter for a few years and we occasionally bump into each other," Mr Hagger said.

"I thought it might be time to have something a bit more formal and have a proper experience rather than an occasional meeting on the street."

Mr Hagger said he had been to TweetUps in Hamilton and Christchurch but never in Rotorua.

"It will be a chance to network, talk, share stories. Hopefully there'll be some live tweeting but that can have its downside - everyone will be looking at their phone rather than each other."

Mr Hagger, who is an administration manager at Waiariki Institute of Technology, has been tweeting for more than four years and has racked up almost 20,000 tweets across his profiles.

"I've got lots of contacts from around New Zealand. It's a constantly changing social medium, the landscape keeps changing. There's always new people coming and going depending on the topic of the time - anything from TV through to sport. There's a couple of people I talk to all about speedway."

@Everydaymanager was his first profile but when that grew so large he set up @HagmanNZ to keep in touch with people to talk to. He also runs a blog called RandomKiwiTweeters where he blogs about his latest "follow", or Twitter profile he has followed.

Anyone who tweets and is in Rotorua on Friday can attend.

Mr Hagger is on the hunt for a suitable table decoration to enable people to recognise where the TweetUp is happening.