So, first, let’s add some details for the Google spiders so that in the future, people who are interested in finding topic-appropriate tweetups can do so, using the kind of cursory web search that might have precluded this kind of pseudo-schism in the first place. The hashtag #atltweet has been used in the Fall of 2008 to identify the social gatherings of Atlanta twitterers at in-town locations, at which the primary goal seems to be drinking, oogling each other’s gadgets, drinking, and chatting about various and sundry topics from politics to movies to local music. The hashtag #atltweetup seems to have been coined by user @tufadvisor in late November 2008 with the goal of collecting twitterers who may or may not live in Atlanta but were going to be in Atlanta for the online business-marketing-networking-whoknowswhat training seminar given by Matt Bacak called "Marketing Madness." Given the rather specific focus of this particular crowd and the physical location of conference attendees, the in-town location and social-alcohol themes found in #atltweet meetings were swapped out for an airport hotel location (site of the seminar) and discussions about…marketing…and stuff. While there may be earnest discussions about monetizing your blog and the secrets of networking at #atltweet tweetups, I heard no such entrepreneurial scheming at the one I attended, YMMV. Presumably, these two hashtags may survive to delineate these two rather different gathering demographics in the future. Now you know, errant wanderer of the interwebs.

I don’t know if anyone was confused or threatened by the existence of a new Atlanta tweetup group, and their use of a unique hashtag actually made such a problem moot. It’d be one thing if some new twitterer followed the #atltweet chatter down to the airport hoping to see such fine ladies as @maigh and @tessa and the like only to be lost in a sea of marketing lingo and the fever of pyramid seminar-based online capitalism, but thanks to the new tag that’s not a problem. In fact, I think it’s more useful to highlight the differences so prospective attendees get the most out of the right tweetup, rather than try to glom everyone together in general Atlantaness.

Sure, there has been some ribbing-type chatter among #atltweet types who shall remain nameless except for me, but it wasn’t for feeling threatened or lacking enough love to go around. Some of us simply got a chuckle out of the irony that for a while there were several people who enjoy giving up whole weekends for seminars about exploiting the internet for marketing and money by making connections using networking secrets who seemed wholly oblivious to the existence of many prior tweetups, even ones predating #atltweet. C’mon, that’s funny. I have pulled similar goofs myself and been heartily chortled at just the same. I don’t think our peanut gallery snickering has done more to create a sharks-v-jets division than the existence of a de facto "leadership" has. I mean, right there you have the creation of distinct tweetups: the ones "hosted" by the admins of a particular FB group, and the ones not. Might as well elucidate the experiential differences between ‘em for future tweeple.

So, while any sharks/jets references dwindle as the joke gets old, I also hope the potential schism raised herein, between the snickerers and the plentyoflovers, also dwindles. ‘Cause this is way too much navel-gazing for a social phenomenon.

Factions are inescapable. They’ll form if only because some people like to join clubs and other people like to organize them, and so every would-be organizer needs a club. Nothing wrong with that. Just is.