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The Southwest Florida Gulf coast community of Sarasota sparkles a little brighter each year when the Sarasota Film Festival hosts 10 days of films and star-studded parties. Utilizing innovative social media to report all that makes the 11th Annual Sarasota Film Festival shine, Twitterers will provide real-time updates in 140 characters or less (called ‘live tweeting’) during the event March 27 through April 5, 2009. Although the film festival has Facebook and Twitter accounts, three Twitter micro-bloggers will share unbiased perspectives and entertaining commentary to those following the event remotely and vicariously. ThisWeekInc.com, a Sarasota-based digital marketing company and one of the festival sponsors, is coordinating the live tweeting efforts.

“The Sarasota Film Festival is a celebration of artistic creativity and innovative thinking. The event has evolved over the years and it is amazing how we can expand our audience and reach through embracing new media to share the unfolding story of the film festival in real-time,” said festival publicist Gary Spring with Springer Associates PR, “The Twitterers will tweet on everything from our Opening Night film with Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson and Oren Moverman, to our baseball fueled World Cinema Celebration, Luncheon Under the Banyans with Bill Paxton and our Film Tribute, not to mention the films, panels and conversation throughout the week. We’ll keep their fingers flittering over their smart phones as they tweet away to the reader’s delight.”

The three Sarasota Film Festival micro-bloggers are:

Janis Krums (http://twitter.com/jkrums): “The Film Connoisseur.” The jet-setting entrepreneur and co-founder of Elementz Nutrition gained international attention earlier this year when he posted the first photo from the US Airways Flight 1549 that landed in the Hudson River to his Twitter account. Krums is a prolific blogger and Twitterer. His live feeds from Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration earned him a spot in blogger Christine Lu’s list of “50 to Follow for Live Tweets from the Inauguration.” Krums will tweet from the heart of the festival reporting on the stories behind the filmmakers and their films.

Jennifer Huber (http://twitter.com/jenniferhuber): “The Star-Struck Sarasota Visitor.” Huber is recognized for her constant quest for bragging rights. An avid traveler she’s been named a “Top 50 Travel Twitterer You Should Follow” by MSNBC.com travel journalist Chris Elliott and her live feeds from Washington, D.C., during the inauguration also landed her a spot in Lu’s top 50 list of Twiterers to follow for live tweets. Huber’s tweets will reflect a quirky traveler exploring Sarasota as well as a star-struck, tongue-tied groupie during her mission to meet scheduled attendees such as Woody Harrelson, Bill Paxton and Jon Voight.

Matt Orr (http://twitter.com/dtnmatt): “The Behind the Scenes Guy.” Founder of ThisWeekInc.com, Orr splits his time between Sarasota and Los Angeles and is widely known as "the guy everyone knows." Affectionately recognized as having a knack for sweet-talking his way into dressing rooms and swanky V.I.P. parties, Orr’s tweets will offer glimpses into the film festival’s behind the scenes action. His mission is to discover what really makes it shine and exploit any hiccups along the way. At the same time, he’ll be making every celebrity gossip blogger jealous with envy.

Those who cannot attend the Sarasota Film Festival can experience it vicariously by following each of the micro-bloggers or following the conversation by visiting Twitter’s search site (search.twitter.com) and keying in the Sarasota Film Festival hash tag (code): #srqfilm. Other Twitterers attending the festival are encouraged to use the hash tag, too. The Sarasota Film Festival’s Twitter address is http://twitter.com/MySFF.

Twitter asks the question, “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. At last count, the free micro-blogging site has an estimate of more than 6 million users and can be accessed on mobile devices such as iPhones and Blackberrys. Twitterers vary from politicians to stay-at-home-moms and celebrities to non-profit organizations.