• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 07 / 07 / 2011

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The first meeting of users of the social network Twitter was celebrated in Havana on July 1 at 4:00 pm at 23rd and 12th of the Vedado district and in the Pabellón Cuba, headquarters of the Saíz Brothers' Asssoication.

The event hosted almost 100 people, mostly young journalism students, administrators, professors of the University of Havana [es], the Polytechnic University Jose Antonio Echeverria and the University of Information Sciences [ES], journalists and bloggers, among others.

Group of tweeters that joined together on July 1 at 23rd and 12th in Havana. Photo by Elaine Díaz.

“I want to meet you” and “Come from behind the @” were the motivations of the principal organizer, a young man named Leunam Rodríguez (@leunamrguez) [es], administrator of the Cuban Radio Portal [es] and author of the blog Twitterencuentro [es].

Despite the change, a day before, from the original location at 23rd and 12th to the Pabellón Cuba, which motivated discrepancies among those who remained faithful to the original venue and those who decided to go to the Pavilion, the majority of the Cuban tweeters met up at the Carmelo restaurant bar after 5:00 pm also located in Vedado and then moved to the park's Amadeo Roldán Theater.

The international press echoed the event, and prestigious media outlets like the Washington Post and USA Today, as well as the Associated Press, EFE, Reuters and the Inter Press Service covered the event that didn't receive equal attention in the national press. According to @yohandry8787, Cuban reporting was missing.

After the meeting, the participants exchanged photos and videos to publish on social networks and began planning future events. Paola (@cubamar) [es], a Cuban residing in Mexico, proposed to have the next meeting at the beach, nicknamed Twittbeach; while @cubanitoencuba [es] suggested that it be on the first Friday of August in Almendares Park located in the capital.

The last report on internet access in Cuba published by the National Statistics Office illustrated very low levels of penetration in the Cuban population. However, Cuban internet users have overcome the technological difficulties in order to create a nascent and varied network of Twitter users.

The first known user of this network in Cuba is the specialist Orlando Ignacio Romero (@orlandoignacio) [es] who now works as deputy artistic director of the Cuban weekly Bohemia [es] and signed up for Twitter at the end of 2007.

In 2010 Twitter exploded in Cuba and the accounts created on the island have increased although the actual number of users continues to be less than in other Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Source: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/07/06/cuba-exciting-first-meeting-of-...