Hash tags (again)

[Dinsdale]

So I just googled “polar vortex”. The first result was “Polar vortex on Twitter, followed by a whole bunch of apparently weather/science/news-related sites. Wiki was in the top 5.

Googling “#polarvortex” generated pretty much the same results. Twitter first, then wiki before the same science/weather/news sites.

I don’t see much difference.

Now I can imagine there would be a difference IF I were already IN Twitter, or if I clicked on a hashtag/hyperlink… So when someone on TV says, “Find out more at #celebrityxyz” - are they actually saying, “Find out more at TWITTER under #celebrityxyz”?

[pulykamell]

I don’t think you can do a forced hashtag search on Google (that is, only return results that have a verbatim #polarvortex in them.)

ETA: Actually, I searched “#polarvortex” with the quotes inclusive, and it does return verbatim results, at least on the first page. Without the quotes, I get a much more general search result. But Google isn’t really how you should be searching hashtags. You look for them in Instagram, Twitter, etc.

[Dinsdale]

@pulykamell

I don’t think you can do a forced hashtag search on Google (that is, only return results that have a verbatim #polarvortex in them.)

So, where do I go to enter # search? Twitter? Where else? Is basically every mention of hashtags essentially an ad for Twitter?

Yeah - I know I am out of touch with a growing portion of society, but I simply have never been interested in tweeting anything, or reading what anyone else tweeted (beyond what is reported in the news.)

OK - saw your edit. So if I don’t use Twitter/Instagram, I should just ignore them. Thanks. I imagine I’ll start using those services a decade or so after all the cool kids have moved on to something else!

[pulykamell]

@Dinsdale

So, where do I go to enter # search? Twitter? Where else? Is basically every mention of hashtags essentially an ad for Twitter?

Yeah - I know I am out of touch with a growing portion of society, but I simply have never been interested in tweeting anything, or reading what anyone else tweeted (beyond what is reported in the news.)

OK - saw your edit. So if I don’t use Twitter/Instagram, I should just ignore them. Thanks. I imagine I’ll start using those services a decade or so after all the cool kids have moved on to something else!

Yeah, Facebook as well. Looks like you could do it in Google with the quotes, but I’d be surprised if a significant segment of the hashtagging population does it this way. With Instagram, for instance, it’s pretty much the way to search content. Instagram is hashtagged up the wazoo for searchability.

[Dinsdale]

In case any of you are interested, I just started an IMHO thread seeking discussion of Twitter and hashtags. I’m not trying to criticize. I simply don’t get the appeal.

[Johnny_L.A]

@Inner_Stickler

Here’s an article on the history of Twitter’s hashtags.

Thanks for that.

I’m at work, so I don’t have time to read and understand the whole thing. I’m at the stage of, ‘OK, this guy wanted to alert groups and wanted to use the # symbol.’ But I’m still not clear how it works. I assume that will become clear upon finishing the article.

[JohnT]

Hashtags are effectively indexes. If I, a Twitter user, wants to find out information on NASA, I can do two things:

1. Follow the specific NASA account using the @ sign, ala @NASA
2. Find news about NASA from people who indexed their tweets using the # sign, ala #NASA

The first only returns tweets from NASA. The second returns tweets about NASA.

[Alley_Dweller]

YouTube has also recently started using hashtags.

They usually appear in light blue print just below the video player box and just above the title of the video.

For example: Marian Hill - One Time
has the hashtags #MarianHill #OneTime #Vevo. You can click on any of those and get other videos, presumably ones that are similarly tagged.

[Pork_Rind]

@Doug_K

Well, not quite exactly. A hashtag gets displayed as a link, so that all you have to do is click on it rather than type into a search box.

In the context of Twitter, yes. But I see hashtag use spreading into other platforms that don’t auto-create links out of those.

[JohnT]

Whenever I do so here, it’s almost always ironic or referential somehow.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

If you’re an old timer, you might think of hashtags as the direct descendant of tags or labels in blogs.

Look at my old blog Planet Lactose. On the left is a long list of labels. That’s because every time I wrote an article I added key words that would make searching easier. (They’re not used on the first article for some reason but the second, “Dark Chocolate May Contain Milk Says FDA,” has a line underneath: Labels: awareness, chocolate, dairy allergy, dairy-free.) The blogger software automatically turned them into clickable labels. The advantage of labels over plain word searches has already been mentioned. There are three articles labeled “milk fat.” Those articles make it a main topic. If you were to search just for milk fat you might find dozens in which the words were incidental.

Message boards also allow tags for threads. The Dope doesn’t use them but other boards do, and for the same reason.

Modern hashtags are exactly like blog labels. Nothing new or mysterious about hashtags.

[Yllaria]

@pulykamell

And, of course, they are also used colloquially and in context where there is no searchability intended (like in speech, text messages, message boards, etc.) as a way to – how best to describe this – make a parenthetical comment on the preceding post or to use a standalone hashtag meme as a comment itself. It’s a bit hard for me to put exactly in words, but I must often see my friends post hashtags using them in this way rather than a metadata searchability way (except on Instagram, where hashtags are pretty much the lifeblood of finding anything there.)

An example of hashtags in speech: “I asked how she was and got a two hour description of her surgery #grossbeyondbelief.”

[Doug_K]

@Pork_Rind

In the context of Twitter, yes. But I see hashtag use spreading into other platforms that don’t auto-create links out of those.

I see that kind of usage of indicative of someone who doesn’t fully understand the concept. Kind of like people who call a straightforward remake a reboot, or who think any stunt done in public is a flash mob.