Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [58]
Figure 9-3: TwitScoop shows you a tag cloud and hot trends.
Hashtags
Hashtags have become a part of the culture on Twitter for many avid users. Basically, hashtags are a way to delineate a keyword for other Twitter users to organize discussions around specific topics and events. Originally, the Web site #hashtags (www.hashtags.org) automatically tracked and displayed these hashtags. But Twitter occasionally turns off the portion of its application program interface (API) that hashtags.org uses, so you can’t always search it reliably.
Not all Twitter users like hashtags: Some users think that hashtags make the Twitter stream clunky. Admittedly, seeing tweet after tweet go by containing hashtags, such as #GNO, #TCOT, #journchat, and other codes, can seem noisy and disjointed if you don’t follow or understand those hashtags. You can always unfollow a heavy hashtag user if it really bothers you, but don’t hit the trigger too quickly: You can probably get used to hashtags, along with the rest of Twitter’s quirks, before too long. The ability to tag tweets is extremely powerful. It’s something people are just starting to figure out, and they have a very interesting future.
As a concept, hashtags make it possible to quickly filter tweets by topic, event, or other content by using an easy abbreviation that doesn’t take up too many of a tweet’s 140 characters. People at the same event or meeting, or who are discussing the same topic, can use the same hashtag. Later on, if you want to review the information related to that event or topic, you can simply search for the hashtag on Twitter Search to find all tweets that reference the same code. (Figure 9-4 shows the results of a search for #dummies.) Sure, you can search by keyword, but the # in a hashtag is a signal for others that it is the keyword to use so that they can easily find, read, and share all tweets for a certain topic or event.
What that means is that a hashtag that catches on forms an instant community around it. Most of these communities are short-lived. Others become ongoing conversations, recurring real-time events, or even entire movements.
Hashtags are handy for note-taking and conversation during events, especially if organizers say something like “include #ourevent in all your tweets” (where ourevent is a unique label for that event.) People tweeting about it just type that #ourevent tag in each tweet to contribute to the combined flow of tweets that all can watch and respond to. More and more, talks and conference panels in the tech and media industries display the search results for the official hashtag, creating a shared billboard of ideas, notes, questions, and other information. People not present at the event can also participate in the discussion by searching the hashtag stream and following along with the presentation or speaker, just like they were there. From how the hashtag is included in the tweet, you can often discover other attendees at the conference that you might want to meet or talk to (although sometimes the people tweeting from offsite are so engaged, you might actually think they were in the room with you).
Say that you’re organizing an event or want to start a discussion or debate on Twitter, and you want to establish a hashtag for that Twitter conversation. Here are some tips for creating an effective hashtag:
If you want to avoid confusion, check Twitter Search for the hashtag that you want to use to make sure that someone else hasn’t already claimed it.
For example, people use the popular #wishlist hashtag for everything from software feature wish lists to requests for birthday presents, so searching for it brings up a fairly cluttered stream.
Make sure everyone at your event or discussing your topic is aware of the proper hashtag in advance.
After you choose your hashtag, make a note of it on your event page or blog post — or, of course, by tweeting it out — so that people responding to it can use the same hashtag.
Figure 9-4: The results of a search for the