Social Media

For the first time ever, Internet users around the world are invited to participate in Joel Comm’s Live Twitter Power Tweet-a-Thon 2009 on Thursday, February 19, 2009 from 12 noon ­ to 12 midnight (EST). Donations through the Tweet-a-Thon will be raised for WaterIsLife.com, a project of Hearts and Hands International, a non-profit organization that provides clean water solutions to those in developing nations. The Tweet-a-Thon will be broadcast from the official site.

Organizers of the 24-hour global fund-raising effort known as Twestival are still counting the cash they raised Thursday for charity: water, which works to provide clean drinking water to developing countries.

Twitter has been co-opted by celebrities and companies like Starbucks and Bank of America. Now, the San Francisco-based service, which allows people to post updates, or “tweets,” up to 140 characters in length, is being adopted to organize an global fund-raising event called Twestival.

On Thursday, in more than 175 cities worldwide, people who chat on the social-networking site Twitter will come together (in person) to raise money for one charity.