January 1, 2008

Hashtags

Hashtags is an effort to add loose metadata to twitterings. Currently, users are referred-to with a preceding "@" in Twitter messages. In the case of hashtags, a twitterer "follows" the Hashtags user and then tags words by prefixing them with a "#". This keyword is then tracked by hashtags.org.

This could get messy as hashtags participants are already placing the "#" in front of too many words that they deem relevant. Perhaps hashtaggers should only place their metadata at the end of the twittering so as not to interfere with the human-readable part of the message.

More ideas for metadata in short messages:
- hashtags could encourage participants to use a set of common prefixes and then connect their community into the greater semweb.
- comma-delimited tags after the "#"
- generate threads of related twitterings using a "re:" and a keyword

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