Warning #1: tech geek alert.
Warning #2: Washington, D.C. area beer geek alert.
Say you're sitting in Mahaffeys Pub (Baltimore, Md.), or Olney Ale House (Montgomery County, Md.), or RFD (Washington, D.C.), or the Fredericksburg Pub (Fredericksburg, Va.), or any good beer bar in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore/northern Virginia area. You see Bells Hop Slam on draft, or Terrapin Rye Squared in Annapolis, or a firkin of Flying Dog Snake Dog just tapped, or something else unique or delicious.
So you Tweet —that is post to the Twitter website— your beer discovery. Maybe one person (or persons) notices it and reTweets your message, and then someone else reTweets that, and so on. The network could easily balloon, alerting many DC/Baltimore/northern Virginia area good beer lovers to your discovery.
Facebook vs. Twitter
Where Facebook is exclusionary —you must invite or allow people to see your page— Twitter is inclusionary —anyone can see your posts, unless you exclude them. A Tweet, therefore, is the equivalent of one text message sent to many people.
So, step one on your road to beer/tech geekdom would be to open a Twitter account. It's free.
Then, go one step further.
UPDATE 2013: Things change; tech things change quickly. Mr Shtuhl no longer is an active reporter of the DC beer scene. Better to search Twitter using the hash tags #DCbrews and #DCbeer; and for Maryland, #MDbeer; for Virginia, #VAbeer.
Beerspotter could be a model for any other city or region.
flyingdog: RT @beerspotter: via @Cizauskas: Flying Dog Garde Dog just put on tap at Evening Star Cafe in Alexandria, VA.beerspotter: via @angryJohnny: Southern Tier Oaked Unearthly Imperial IPA & Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout on tap at Galaxy Hut, 2711 Wilson Blvd., Arlingtonbeerspotter: via @beerandpork: Bell's Porter and Gouden Carolus D'Or at Nanny O'Briens
Orr Shtuhl is using GroupTweet. So when you post a beer spotting, you should Tweet it to Beerspotter only as a Direct Message and without hashmarks such as @beerspotter or
Read more about Twitter:
- You can follow my Tweets at twitter.com/cizauskas.
- Follow breweries in Washington>, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia on Twitter: .here
- Some US breweries all a-Twitter [Originally posted in 2009, but still some useful information.]
- Twitter's utility
- The Session #24: a Twitter Tripel
- Twitter-ers taste Trappists
Tom, kudos for the post; for your spots on the Beerspotter Twitter feed; and for explaining things about Twitter that I can only pretend to know. Thanks to you and all your readers, we all drink better fermentables. Cheers,
ReplyDeleteOrr Shtuhl
Beerspotter
Washington City Paper
THIS is a geek / beer geek's dream post!
ReplyDeleteI love it.
Unfortunately, I'm in Baltimore :(