Get ready for another BarCamp

It's nine months days since Leeds' first BarCamp back in November...but rather than wait a whole year, we wanted to catch the Summer Sun, so come join us at Old Broadcasting House again, this time for two days of geekery and (hopefully) great weather on the 16th and 17th of August 2008!

What is BarCamp Leeds?
BarCamp Leeds is the city's second 'unconference', a event where the folks that attend create the programme of sessions themselves. BarCamps are open, participatory, democratic, 'workshop' events; the organisers and sponsors simply provide wireless broadband, a venue, beverages and food! The attendees provide the content - and the buzz :)
BarCamps are a great opportunity to network, lean and share...plus generally a lotta fun too. We're hoping our stack of Nintendo Wiis will break the ice and we know Old Broadcasting House will be a fun and inspiring venue.
We'd love for you to come - if you're a creative, an artist, a writer, blogger, technologist, or a developer, geek, entrepreneur, academic researcher, gamer or investor please join us. If you're just curious and interested in digital culture or social media - we'd love to meet you too :)
Come and demo, talk, share or just hang out!

UK sets the pace for Twitter

Just back from a stay with friends in North Yorkshire and slightly distracted by the number of “tweets” I have been getting from Number 10 – the PM, Gordon Brown’s Twitter account.
Also, the BBC Tech Team, The Guardian and other have been twittering too. I love Twitter – but I don’t know why. Admittedly it’s a great way of staying in touching and monitoring what other people are up to … so far so good.
But it looks like Twitter is finally going mainstream and it’s being led by the Brits according to recent stats by Hitwise. "Twitter is more popular with Brits than Americans. Last week the site's share of UK Internet visits was 70% higher its share of visits in America," writes Hitwise's Robin Goad.

"UK Internet visits to www.twitter.com have increased by 631% over the last 12 months, with 485% of that growth coming this year."
Down with the yoof, my son uses Twitter as do his friends and the general view on the interweb is that the UK will be the region that will prove the tipping point for the platform.
I’m not convinced as most people I speak to have never heard of it but then they have never heard of blogging, Facebook, MySpace…
Any thoughts people?