twestival

It started with a conversation, and is ending in hundreds of events around the world. Tonight I am on BBC ONE talking about Twitter, and hopefully not sounding too much like a geek. I was on the evening news talking about Twitter: Twittering On BBC. People in the UK and all around the world have dedicated much of their daylight time (and midnight oil) into organising what must be one of the largest on-line-to-off-line charity events in recent history. Kudos to Amanda Rose, and to all those who made Twestivals happen around the world.  I took a couple of pictures and answered some questions.

screenshot_Benjamin_Ellis_BBC

Twestival to aims to raise money and awareness for charity: water. It may net more than £1 million pounds before today is out, which is quite something for an on-line community of a tool that wasn’t even heard of a year ago. This is mass collaboration at work, CauseWired style. Thousands of people, amplified by technology, making a difference. A very exciting day. Well done people – with help from Twitter (which just closed its own $35 million round of funding).

As I mentioned in the BBC interview, one of the things I love about twitter is the diversity of the community, “Benjamin Ellis and Grannies.” If you want to read a touching post on that subject, do read Christian Pain’s post (aka @documentally): “My Gran is on Twitter“.

I headed out of London, over to Reading, to join the crowd there and meet some new faces: