Muscat: Over 120 Tweeps, members of social networking website Twitter.com, from over 200 cities around the world, gathered in Oman as the country hosted its first "Twestival" to raise 1,350 Omani riyals for charity.
“We had a live streaming of the two and half-hour meet for the global audiences to watch the activities of Tweeps in Oman,” said Sangeetha Sreedhar, one of the main organisers of the Twestival.
“It was a unique confluence of land, water and air, as we went on world’s fastest catamaran ferry ‘Hormuz for the OmanTwestival,” enthused Omani Tweep Badar Al Hinai, a key member of the community involved in organising the Twestival.
"It was a perfect opportunity to put faces to the members we communicate with in the virtual world, it was meeting members in the real world,” said Omani Tweep Riyadh Al Balushi, who goes by the name of Blue-chi on Twitter.
Twitter members met for nearly three hours during which an Omani duo entertained them with a fushion of Omani instrument Oudh and western guitar.
“Twestival is a community gathering of the members of the Twitter community– an event held on the same day of the year across several cities of the world synchronised in the real world, and Oman has hosted this event for the first time," pointed out Sangeetha.
Twestival 2010 supported education through Concern Worldwide, a non-government humanitarian organisation that reaches to out-of-school children.
Concern's education programs currently reach over 700,000 people in 25 countries across the regions of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
The first global Twestival was held on 12th February 2009 across over 202 cities with the cause of providing clean water.
It managed to raise over $250,000 for Charity – Water to provide more than 55 wells in Uganda, Ethiopia and India.
