shift+3=#
Get used to it.
It is about to become the most used button on your keyboard & iphone.
In case you haven't heard, there are millions of birds chirping and it's going to get a lot louder. I am of course talking about the recent explosion of Twitter. The tiny little bird that could, and is taking over the social web landscape. The last article I read said that Twitter grown at a staggering rate of 1382% over last year and could quite possibly going to threaten Google as a search option.
So why is the '#' relevant? Known as the twitter hashtag, it is the community-driven way of adding additional context and meta data to your tweets, essentially creating groupings on Twitter. For example, When attending SXSWi in Austin, I had a added #SXSWi & #SXSW to my tweets which allowed people searching for these hashtags see my tweets. On the other side of the coin, I had a constant search in Tweedeck going for the same hashtags, allowing me to be in-the-know of what other people were tweeting about at the conference.
At SXSWi, most panels that I sat in on created a hashtag for the 'class' so people could post questions or comments in real-time and interact with panel in that manner. For an example of this, search #specwork09 in Twitter, or using a Twitter application like Tweetdeck. This by far was one of the most 'heated & interactive' panels that we attended titled 'Is Spec Work Evil'. Not only will you see comments/questions that happened during the panel, you will se how others are continuing the debate long after the panel was over.
I was introduced to Twitter more than a year ago by @ryanblaind in our office and quite honestly, I didn't see the point at that time. It wasn't until I spent time with him a couple of months ago and he demonstrated the power of using an application like Tweetdeck. I then looked at in a whole new light. It gave me the power of information and connectivity well beyond that I have experienced with Facebook or other social media platforms. – PS: If you don't know why I referred to Ryan as @ryanblaind, trust me you will very soon.
To all you Facebookers out there, give Twitter a try, trust me you'll become a 'Tweep' in no time. Start by following me on Twitter. To be perfectly honest, I can't see my life without it.
Just as closing note: I found out there was an earthquake in Greece this morning, 19 minutes after it happened, and over 1 Million people knew about the plane crash in New Zealand before the media even knew it happened. Thanks to Twitter and by following these tweeps.
- Tagged in: twitter, sxsw interactive, interactive, trends, culture
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