Hash tags or pound signs (#) help to designate topics that people might search for. You can search Twitter posts via search.twitter.com. Hash tags help users who want to set up a dedicated RSS feed for what’s going on with a particular event. Here’s an example:
Twitter Hash Tags and Pound Signs
In the example above, BrentO tweeted about a conference in Seattle. Anytime someone uses the phrase #PASS in their tweet, it will be much easier to find in search.twitter.com than if you just searched for PASS, because the word PASS will match all kinds of stuff like football passes or people saying they’ll take a pass.
The best part: at search.twitter.com, you can set up an RSS feed for any given search phrase. If you’re going to PASS, for example, just subscribe to this RSS feed, and you’ll get updates whenever anybody uses the #PASS tag in their tweet. This will help you meet other database administrators going to the conference even if you don’t subscribe to their tweets.
This is slang, not a system function. Twitter doesn’t do anything special if you put in a # phrase, but some Twitter clients like TweetDeck will automatically link hash tags to search.twitter.com to do a search for that hash tag! Very helpful.
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3 Responses
I still dont understand this…
I always thought hash tags were for fun xD
Like #humpthestump.
Can someone explain better?
Posted on July 20th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Look at # as a kind of tag-utility.
On youtube, you might search for “funny” or “educational”.
Here on twitter, the # followed by the relevant tag, will make sure that your tweet is “marked” and ready to be searched for
Posted on August 19th, 2009 at 8:36 am
thank you newbie-ish well said. I think i get it now.
Posted on February 6th, 2010 at 5:38 am
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