I had the good fortune last week of attending the Blog World Expo in Vegas and finally got to meet a whole helluva lot of people I’ve “known” for a while online IN REAL LIFE.

I suppose I should say IRL, in the spirit of this being a blog and Twitter-related and all, but when it’s people who you’ve been talking to online for upwards of two and a half years, well, spelling it all out seems to be the right thing to do.

So I thought I’d do a #FollowFriday post on the cool folks I finally met. I’ll probably do this for a couple of weeks, as I met up with a ton of people and also met some brand-new people who I’d love to share with the world. I’m not going to do a whole explainer on folks who I’ve already #FollowFriday’d, but will mention them.

As usual, please leave your suggestions for other people you think I should follow, in the comments section.

So, without further chit-chat, here are some way cool people whose Twitter streams you should check out:

• RichBecker: Of all the people I met last week, I’ve known Richard the longest. Back about two and a half years ago, a little television show called Jericho was canceled by CBS. Both of us were fans and both of us were bloggers and we both ended up writing about it. I was covering the show for a TV blog and he mostly wrote about it from a marketing/public relations standpoint in terms of how CBS handled the whole thing and the ways the fans were pushing for a renewal. I was still a journalist and Rich was a former journalist, so we naturally gravitated to one another. We’ve kept in touch ever since and occasionally exchange e-mails or Facebook or Twitter comments. Well, Rich lives in Vegas AND works with Blog Catalog’s Bloggers Unite campaign. So he was there, helping at BC’s exhibitors table. Rich is a great guy and knows what he’s talking about. His blog is good reading and he’s a helluva nice guy to boot.

• JBoitnott: John Boitnott is a little different, because I’ve actually met him before, when he was in NYC at the 140C (Twitter’s 140 Character Conference) earlier this year. We’re both old-school journos who saw the future and it was social media. He’s now the social media strategist for Village Voice Media, which means he helps some of the coolest alternative weekly newspapers in the nation figure out how to be as social-media friendly as they can be. John is one of the hardest working people I know and he is also a barrel of fun. I love hanging out with him and he’s got a wicked sense of humor.

• 0boy: I’ve crossed paths with JD Rucker for quite some time on Digg, Twitter and other social sites, but only got to know him very recently. He’s such a dad and the first night we were there, he carted around a car full of losers (myself included) to the Strip and back to our hotels again. In fact, on the way to the Strip, the car was so full that I felt as if I were back in high school. And though we were in Vegas, where the drinks are free half the time, not a peep of a complaint from JD about carting around people who couldn’t be bothered to take a cab or the monorail. Such a dad. He also caught video of me, MrBabyMan and BridgetAyers dancing in a dark dance club. So if I don’t want that to ever see the light of day, I am obligated to tell you all what a wonderful human being he is. Really.

• MrBabyMan: Andrew Scorcini is alternately the most love and the most hated man on Digg. That comes with being the top submitter of content ever on the top social bookmarking site. A film editor by trade, Andy has an eye for some of the best content on the internet. It’s kinda scary. But he’s fun to talk to and hang with and, yes, dance with.

• MSaleem: If you haven’t heard of Muhammed Saleem, you’re not paying attention. I’ve known Mu for a while through his Digging, his Tweeting, his Stumbling, his work on various sites including Tip’d and all that sorta stuff. But what you don’t know about Mu is that his hair is WAY longer than it is in his profile pictures. I almost didn’t recognize him when I finally met him in person. He was among the boys who had the good taste to play craps with me. In fact, when I was desperately trying to get the guys to gamble, Mu was the first to agree and to help me seek out a craps table. P.S. He’s glad he did. All of us won. True story.

• GVoakes: Greg Voakes is the brains behind Ultimate Goat Fansite and is Canadian. He also looks remarkably like Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, though I’m not sure if he was even born yet when that movie came out. Yes, he is that young. He’s old enough to gamble, though, and he was among the winners at our craps table. And because of his website, everytime I see a picture of a goat or someone says the word goat, I think of him. I’m not sure if that’s good or not, but I choose to believe it’s good.

OK, that’s the first six, but I have another five or six for next week’s #FollowFriday and perhaps another group for a third. I feel as if I should make up for last week’s lack of #FollowFriday, but I’m behind enough as it is and just want to get this posted already!

Thanks for playing along, and please leave your recommendations in the comments.