Extraordinary celebration of Twitter as social medium Hugs from Jeff, spotlight on charming givers attracted by Twitter Canadian Kid loses stutter by rapping, Abramoff pushes lobbying reform Seok's Twittermentary movie premieres, pizza party Basic issue #140 addresses - how much to reveal on Net? Is physical meeting still key to full human response? Vonage cofounder multimillionaire - $40 million, reportedly - Jeff Pulver is another Saul Wurman (founder maestro of TED on the West Coast, the Technology, Entertainment and Design show-and-tell now run by Chris Anderson), but in his case he gives it away, running the remarkably rich experience of the #140 Conferences, which feature key Twitter players telling stories of how Twitter has changed their lives and the lives of their followers. As a survey of the social power of this relatively new medium, now the king of real time communication in the world, it is unmatched. The latest #140conf (the twitter handle) event took place this week on Tuesday and Wednesday at the YMHA on 92nd Street in Manhattan, featuring an unending stream of lively and moving speakers on stage - one of the most famous/notorious being Jack Abramoff - as well as a number of tables in the hall where originators presented their Twitter related inventions, ranging from a witty crime thriller satire written entirely in Tweets over a year, to a new way of discovering people of similar interests nearby at a live event that you might want to meet. Pulver limits his speakers to fifteen minutes each, enforced by a keyboard player who ramps up background flourishes if they go over time, so things move along rapidly. He gives them each a bear hug as they leave the stage, which they deserve not only because they contribute their talk without monetary reward (and pay for their own travel) but because without exception they are among the most charming people on the planet. For the theme of the conference is not how to make money out of social media, but how to make a difference using social media, and how Twitter brings people together and enables social contacts and networks which otherwise would never exist, and to do good above and beyond the immediate satisfaction of broadcasting self-expression and conferring validation on shutins, couch and keyboard potatoes and other isolated people. With this kind of spirit it is easy to like the speakers, but to a man and woman they are all so warm, engaging and constructive that they are downright charming with it, which may well be the criterion Jeff uses, whether he knows it or not. A visit to the green room on the morning of the first day found that the speakers waiting quietly focused for their 15 minutes of spotlight were just as full of energetic charm offstage as they were onstage. Here we present some pics and video clips to prove it, including a brief chat with Abramoff himself after his talk, unfortunately somewhat awkwardly shot by Abramaoff's female handler who borrowed our camera to shoot us so that the cameraman recording a documentary on Abramoff could also record the interview without me handling it. But of course the bulk of the evidence backing up my claim that Pulver's speakers have to be the most attractive Web gurus on the planet has to be the clips of their performances now archived at Ustream (see http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/23439823 and others: they will be cut into individual appearances later; for the moment they are all stuck together in large chunks). What can be enjoyed by viewers of these clips on Ustream is the effect of the spirit of #140 on the people who talk there, who in contrast to the fast talking salesmen of commercial events (such as the high quality DCM-East Conference at the Doubletree which overlapped last week with #140, see above) were fast talking in the interest of others, rather than themselves. This was not a fete of self serving self promotion aiming to sell the audience on the attractions of new software and sites and ad presenting on iPads and other access platforms - the whole paraphernalia of social media which business is struggling to exploit as fast as possible - but a festival of people helping people, all of them amateurs, and telling us how they did it through Twitter. With the age group ranging from bearded seniority to 13 year old kids, one of the most disarming moments came when Craig one 13 year old couldn't help sharing his latest joke ("Two muffins were in the oven. One said to the other, "Wow it's hot in here!" And the other one says, "Aaagh a talking muffin!") stolen, he said, from his Twitter friend @claudehamilton ("Success is all a matter of luck. Ask any failure."). Suddenly one realized that the charm of #140 is that everyone is operating on the level of purity, directness and innocence of children, unspoiled by the need to be presentable in a sales way, polishing one's self-presentation and choosing one's words to manipulate and persuade rather than simply express enthusiasm for doing good to and for others. In other words, they celebrate Twitter as human to human mode, rather than seller to buyer mode, a differenc universe, one of humanity engaging with humanity on a humane, emotionally expressive level. In this helping, not selling spirit there were stage appearances by Jake, a kid with a very burdensome stutter which magically vanished when he rapped (1.44 hr on http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/23439823), which talent also saw his school bullying vanish, it turned out; a confession of child abuse; and an appearance by Jack Abramoff, interviewed on his current project, trying to save America from the great ravine into which it has fallen, where almost all its governing politicians are being bought and sold by corporations.