The hash mark in Twitter « Thoughts On Translation

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The hash mark in Twitter

February 27, 2009 by Corinne McKay

I haven’t yet started using Twitter, but I have a number of Facebook friends who feed their Tweets to their Facebook status updates (is that enough Web 2.0 references in one sentence?), and I’ve wondered about the meaning of the hash mark (#) that people include in their Tweets. For example “I was talking on my #iPhone…” or “Going to a #Boulder Media Women event…”. If you’re also wondering, here’s an easy to follow explanation from Kristine Wirth’s blog. In brief, the hash marks are a sort of keyword tag in Twitter, and if you’re willing to sacrifice one of your precious 140 characters, the term that you tag with the hash mark will then show up on the hashtags website. Once you’ve visited the hashtags website, you can then add the decidedly Web 2.0 term “real-time news community” to your vocabulary!

Posted in Links, Nubbin | 5 Comments

5 Responses

on February 27, 2009 at 5:23 am | Reply jillsommer

Just so you know, some translation-related hash marks I’ve seen are #x18 and #translation.
on February 27, 2009 at 11:30 am | Reply Judy Jenner

Ah, very interesting. I’ve wondered what the heck that means myself. I am one of those folks who feed their Twitter into Facebook, but have yet to make use of the hash mark. Thanks for clearing that up for me!
on May 13, 2009 at 5:08 pm | Reply Kim

Great post! I found Kristine Wirth’s Blog very useful as well

My only question is, how do you know what a hash mark (#) stands for?

Is there a directory? This link (http://hashmarksthespot.com/2009/03/01/how-do-i-know-what-a-hash-tag-stands-for/) attempts to address my question, but it seems outdated.

Any suggestions? Thx!
on May 13, 2009 at 5:15 pm | Reply Kim

Just to clarify, is there a way find the original post without scrolling endlessly to where it originated? For example, what does #fb stand for? I assumed FB, but the tweets don’t really make sense in that context. I’ve tried searching on Google, but no luck.
on December 7, 2009 at 12:19 pm | Reply Luke

Hi. I’m late to this thread but a google search pulled it up as I was wondering if any other translation hashtags are being used.

@jillsommer – you’ve probably noticed by now, but for others, the tag to search for is #xl8 (L instead of 1) which is a space-saving trans-L-8.

I tried to put it into practice myself in January this year and it seemed to take off:
http://lukespear.co.uk/twitter-translation-xl8-success/