Dust off your gloves and get training, it's #bigtweetoff week!

Over in the blue corner is Arie Moyal, a brand engagement strategist with a penchant for making the world a better place. He often blogs about the social impact of social media and says social media has changed his life in (mostly) positive ways.

In the red corner is our very own Paul Sutton, social comms guy, blogger and cynic. Paul fears that his baby daughter could grow up in a world where interaction in the real world takes second place to interaction on Facebook.

Two great contenders, one hour and one hotly debated topic.

Want to be part of the The Big Tweet Off? Here's the run down of how it works:

• On Thursday, 2 December 7.30pm GMT head to Twitter and follow #bigtweetoff
• For the first 20 minutes the session will be lead by Arie and Paul who will put their argument forward in 140 punches
• Following this, it's your turn to join the debate - start your tweets with either B (for blue corner) or R (for red corner), state your oppinion and don't forget the #bigtweetoff hashtag
• Of course, Arie and Paul will continue to spar throughout the debate
• The session will be guided and moderated by @thebigtweetoff which will slap any deviants in to shape - remember, this is a fair fight
• We will run a Twitt Poll throughout the session for you to vote on the winning argument
• The bell will ring at 7.30 sharp so dust off your boxing gloves and get training!

Here's what our contenders said:

Arie: "Social media enhances lives and strengthens communities. I've seen it with my own eyes. Can it be a time drain or interfere with human interaction? Sure! But overall, it connects people and helps them find solutions both online and offline."

Paul: "Social media is a fantastic enabling technology, allowing us to communicate and share like never before. But as we (the human race) become more and more used to communicating in 140 characters and skim-reading blogs, and as our children spend more and more time online, we’re in danger of creating a society that knows lots about little, but little about lots."

To understand the background of The Big Tweet Off, visit our launch post here. Feel free to shout any questions to @thebigtweetoff, @thepaulsutton or @beth_carroll.

Got an opinion you want to fight out in public? Let us know and you could be next in the ring.

Some fodder to get you thinking:

Video by Allen Mezquida. More at http://smigly.tv

Thanks for all of your input after the first two #bigtweetoff events, fight fans. As a result of your feedback we’ve got some great pointers to make future Fight Nights a little more organised and even more enjoyable.

For starters, #bigweetoff will now take place once per month on the first Thursday of the month. The time remains the same, 7.30pm GMT. We’re hoping that by limiting the number of contests we can concentrate on the really big topics and have some fantastic, lively and beneficial debates, each with a tangible outcome. 

Our next Fight Night will be on Thursday 2nd December, details to be announced very soon!

What we’re also now going to do is to put a schedule together that lists out the debates that are going to take place, the dates they’re taking place on and who the two competitors are. And to that end, we want your help.

Basically, we’re calling you out! Got an opinion on something in the social media sphere that you think might be controversial? Fed up with a platform, a behaviour or a discussion topic? Got an ongoing debate with a peer that you can’t decide? Then put your money where your mouth is and let’s get this sorted once and for all. Put your gloves on and get in the ring! We’re after contenders and topics for 2011. 

If you’ve got an idea for a debate that you’d like to see two people battle over, or if you’d like to take part yourself, or if you’ve got an idea that you’d like to debate personally, please let us know! Just DM us at @thebigtweetoff. 

See you in the ring soon...

At Big Tweet Off Towers, we've been totally delighted with the reaction we've had to our first two Fight Nights, and with the number of people that have taken part. As The A Team's Hannibel says: "I love it when a plan comes together..." But back slaps, high fives, chest bumps and Mr T aside, we've been having a bit of a debate of our own about how often we should hold a #bigtweetoff.

The whole reason for The Big Tweet Off was to do something a bit different; something that you'd look forward to and really want to take part in. There'd be nothing more lonely than for our two contenders to be slugging it out in front of three people and a couple of cats.

We'd like to keep The Big Tweet Off as something special and enjoyable, so we'd like you to tell us: how often would you like to see a #bigtweetoff happening? Do you think we should go for a regular weekly event and cover a wide variety of topics, or should we space it out a bit more to focus on key topics?

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION.

And, as a reward, treat yourself to some of The Todd's best high fives from Scrubs...

It was Adam that came out the most confident, springing a surprise ‘turned my avatar blue’ move to reflect his blue corner status, ‘strutting out to the ring’ and rebuking Emily’s first remark with a ‘is that all you got? Can’t believe I warmed up for this’ tweet. But not distracted by Adam’s early posturing, Emily was soon into her stride, challenging Adam to say whether he thought it’s safe to assume what we think in Twitter represents the world at large, stating that Twitter is a defined group of people who share common interests and that if we ask Twitter to help with decision making we have to accept that this is akin to asking a group of friends with similar attitudes, beliefs and ideals.

Adam was clearly rattled over the issue of whether Twitter is representative, but came back strongly by stating that Twitter is an open platform, that it makes people more aware of the big picture and connects people around the world, and that there is no such thing as one idyllic community but that at least people on Twitter are real. They were good, solid punches, but Emily’s defence was holding strong and she was soon back on the attack, landing some big hits with the assertion that Twitter provides a skewed viewpoint filtered through people who already share interests, that an election based solely on tweets wouldn't be fair, and that it’s easy for those of us inside Twitter to forget that this filtering occurs so that we’re not hearing what the rest of the world thinks, hence the ‘Twitter bubble’.

It was getting bloody, and things only became more brutal as the debate was opened up to the masses. Among the big blows that were landed in a fascinating and extremely thought-provoking exchange of opinions, were:

• Duncan Miller’s statement that Twitter is often a closed universe; misguided and misused (sometimes) and therefore fallible
• Paul Sutton asserting that Twitter is a contained universe of around 150 million people, only about 3% of  the world’s population, and so cannot be considered representative
• Emily explaining that the filter within Twitter is that certain demographics are more likely to use Twitter, and that even then we select the type of people we follow
• Andy Nowlan saying that a Twitter contingent, although small, is often the most vocal
• Beth Carroll pointing out that when things go wrong, Twitter is often the first place you hear about it, so it’s an extension of our world rather than a bubble
• Adam saying that it isn’t a bubble because it opens the participants up to new things and makes them more aware of the world, and asking how many people we have connected with on the other side of the planet via Twitter

By the end of the fight, Adam was out for the count, with Emily winning an overwhelming 74% of the vote. But the good thing about #BigTweetOff? The only things bruised were a couple of egos. This was a truly fascinating debate to watch and take part in. There were over 330 tweets on the day from over 80 contributors. The full transcript is here to read.

To attempt to summarise is difficult due to the wide disparity of opinion. But the key takeout may be that IF Twitter is a bubble of like-minded people with similar attitudes or socio-demographic markers, it is no more of a bubble than any other group or community. As with all communities, as long as those both within and outside of Twitter are aware of that fact, recognise it and accept that Twitter is not necessarily representative of world opinion, there should be no problem. But whether they are and whether they do, as this debate proves, is the real issue...