So Thursday night, I joined about 50 other people at the Triangle Tweetup 2.0—my first in-person Twitter event. It was great to see a few people I did know (including the fellow internet marketing masterminder who lured me into my Twitter addition—thanks a lot @justis!) and to meet a lot of the people I’d been following. All of whom looked just like their pictures. (Imagine that, people using a current photo in the internet world…)

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s a micro-blogging site where you post the answer to “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less (which is called a “tweet”). I can understand if you’re thinking “Who cares?” because I used to think that too. But if you’re following the right people, you will care. Because they post about projects they’re working on, blog posts they’ve written, resources they’ve found helpful. I’m going to tell you the 10 reasons I like Twitter tomorrow, so I’ll move on for now.

Back to the Tweetup. Apparently the Triangle is quite a hotbed of social media start-ups, as several locals introduced the group to their applications—such as FlixPulse (aka Twitter Movie Reviews) and Seesmic (essentially a video Twitter)—before the actual socializing began.

I’m not a techie, so occasionally the API and php talk sailed right over my head, but it was fun to be around so many smart, creative people. And too—from a marketing point of view—amazing to see people this enthused about one company with one deceptively simple-looking internet application. (Who never expected their service to become the hit it has.)

But its simplicity is part of the genius—people don’t have time for bells and whistles. The other part key is that people can build a community—which is a BIG trend right now—and engage as much or as little as they like.

If you want to make friends, you can make friends. If you just want to kill time at work, you can do that. If you just want to find out what the gurus in your industry are thinking, you can just follow those people and never comment at all. And businesses such as Zappos and H&R Block are increasingly using it to enhance the relationship with, and get feedback from, their customers.

If you haven’t done so, check it out at www.Twitter.com. You can follow me at www.twitter.com/tlneedham and if you’re in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, you can find more about future TriangleTweetup gatherings. Oh, and pictures from the event are here.