Twitter for Dummies (22 page)

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 hashtag
#dummies.

Expanding Your Twitter World by Using Clients

Twitter’s open API means that enterprising and creative software developers are constantly creating applications, mashups, and entire services that feed off of the Twitter platform. For example, Figure 9-5 shows the desktop client TweetDeck.

Many of these third-party applications are
Twitter clients,
programs designed to let you update Twitter on your desktop or mobile phone, instead of having to use the Web interface or text-messaging. Many of these applications auto-load tweets from your Twitter followers. This is nice, because on the Web site, you have to actually click the Refresh button on your browser every few minutes to see what’s going on. Each of these applications have different ways of displaying, organizing, searching and letting you interact with tweets, making them a very diverse crop of applications. There is definitely a competition afoot to become the preferred way for most Twitterers to engage with Twitter. Whether a few clear leaders emerge or whether people continue to interact with Twitter dozens of ways remains to be seen.

Figure 9-5:
Put Twitter on your desktop with a client such as TweetDeck.

Desktop clients

Many Twitter clients for your Mac or PC take the form of a software download that you install and run from the desktop. Most of these clients are based on a programming standard called Adobe Air. Adobe Air doesn’t come preinstalled on your computer, so if you don’t have it already, you’ll be instructed to install it when you download a Twitter desktop client. Adobe Air is a free program; so, in fact, are many of the Twitter clients that we talk about.

Anybody with a decent amount of programming know-how can create a Twitter client, but here are a few that stand out from the crowd because they’re particularly easy to use and offer the features that most Twitter users want:

Twhirl (
www.twhirl.org
):
Based on Adobe Air, you can install Twhirl on any computer that runs a Mac, Windows, or Linux operating system. It has a slim, attractive, and unobtrusive window interface (as shown in Figure 9-6), which many avid Twitter users like. Importantly, Twhirl can switch back and forth between multiple Twitter accounts, which is handy for those users who keep separate personal and professional ones, or who run Twitter accounts for clients. It also works with several social-networking services, such as aggregator FriendFeed, open-source microblogging application Identi.ca, and video-chat company Seesmic (which owns Twhirl), so you can use many of your social tools in one place. The interface is semi-customizable, fairly easy to get the hang of, and currently free to use.

In spring 2009, Seesmic rolled out a beta version of its Twhirl replacement Seesmic Desktop. The new client offers many new features, an easier way to work with multiple Twitter accounts, and can subscribe to Facebook contents.

TweetDeck (
www.tweetdeck.com
):
This free Twitter client, based on Adobe Air, is compatible with Mac, Windows, or Linux systems, just like Twhirl. If Twhirl isn’t hardcore enough for you, you’re in luck — TweetDeck is for the power Twitter user. The main selling points of TweetDeck are the ability to form specific groups of your contacts, integrated Twitter search, and multiple-column interface. Beyond that, you’ll find many of the same features as on Twhirl, including the ability to get content from more than one social network (Facebook, for example). TweetDeck is almost too functional for some casual Twitter users, but if you use Twitter frequently, you can’t easily beat seeing trending topics in a column or performing a detailed Twitter search right from your desktop. TweetDeck and Twhirl increasingly vie for the top spot as most popular desktop Twitter client, but it’s worth noting that approximately half of Twitter use seems to happen right at Twitter.com.

Figure 9-6:
Twhirl has a stylish interface design.

Spaz (
www.funkatron.com/spaz
):
A newer Twitter desktop client (shown in Figure 9-7). It’s an Adobe Air app that offers many of the same features that Twhirl and TweetDeck do, but Spaz has these added bonuses:

•
Skinnable:
You can customize Spaz by applying what techies call
skins,
frequently by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Skins change the look and feel of the application. Creating and sharing custom skins is a popular thing for programmers to do. Don’t worry too much about what this means to you; it just means more choices and options if you want them.

•
Open source:
You may have heard the term
open-source software
and wondered what it meant. Open-source software just means that the code underlying the application is shared with others so that other developers can change it to create new features, build applications for it, or otherwise improve upon it. The makers of Spaz have opened its code to the masses so that developers can change it to fit their needs.

Figure 9-7:
You can customize the desktop client Spaz.