Twitter and hashtags.

Nowadays, we are in the century of information. People have more information than ever. While citizens get information, there is an important process that has to be done, which is called communication. The World Wide Web has change the way we communicate. Websites like Twitter or Facebook are becoming more and more important and they are helping in that sense of improving how human beings communicate. Around 500 million people use Facebook and 200 million people use Twitter. On the following lines, it will be explained the website Twitter and specifically, one of  important tools which is hashtags.

Twitter helps people from all over the world to communicate. It has many advantages, for example, you can use it wherever you are and at any time. Users in this site communicate by tweets which are the texts that one person send to the others. This texts or tweets can only have 140 characters. Twitter has been evolving since it was launched in 2006. One of its most important improvements has been hashtags. Hashtags are used by users among other things to create groups that discuss about the same topic. Moreover, this tool gives more metadata and context to the tweets.

Using hashtags is very simple. You only have to type the # symbol followed by the tag you are going to talk about in your  tweet.  This  will  redirect your tweet to the site where all the members of  Twitter are commenting  on that issue.Many times the hashtag you will type would have already been created by another member before. That is why it is recommended to investigate before the most important hashtags of the website.

Hashtag symbol

 Hashtags can be used to many things. For instance, Chris Messina, who is an important designer and advocate for the open web, was the first man that said that people could use tweets to co-ordinate actions when a natural disaster happened. This was done, for example, in Haiti’s disaster or San Diego’s one.  Other uses of hashtags are  to know which are the trending topics of the time (#Wikileaks) ,to express the intent of the post (#ironic) or keep track of an ongoing conversation. 

Nonprofiteers are specially rewarded with this system because they can discuss about different themes with everybody. Moreover, Users do not need to be signed in Twitter to follow the most trending topics. They can go to hashtag.org and follow there all the comments on the issue they are interested in. Finally, it has to be said that hashtags have to be used carefully and with good intentions, if not they become useless. Do not use them like spam and it is recommended to use the #CamelCase where the initials of the words are capitalized to the better understanding of the tags. Do not hesitate to follow the #rdf1011 hashtag where themes covering internet, information and digital resources are commented.

References:

• Hashtags(June, 2010) In Twitter Fan Wiki. Retrieved 2o, november, 2010 from http://twitter.pbworks.com/w/page/1779812/Hashtags
• Twitter Hashtags: Nonprofits Speak up (2010, May 29) In 24 Usable hours. Retrieved 20, November, 2010 from http://www.devonvsmith.com/2010/05/twitter-hashtags-nonprofits-speak-up/
• An introduction to Twitter Hashtags( 2008, March,11) In Wild Apricot. Retrieved 20, November, 2010 from http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog/archive/2008/03/11/an-introduction-to-twitter-hashtags.aspx
• Sponsored Hashtags: A Brand Risk Worth Taking?  ( 2009, April, 29) In Mashable. Retrieved 20, November, 2010 from http://mashable.com/2009/04/21/sponsored-hashtags/

Hypertext

Mainly, when we talk about hypertext we talk about a text that lead us to another text which is linked to the first one. We are transported from one page to another by hyperlinks. Not only do these links show us another text but they can also show us a video, song, web page…related with the subject.

Hypertext has renewed the way the user has to read an article, has improved  the way of getting information and has finished with the limitations of written text. Nowadays, with hypertext we do not have to read the whole article, we just read what its useful for us and click on an hyperlink to continue reading about what we are interested. The user read the information in a non-lineal way and each user can read the information in the way he want. For example, while I am writing this article, I am searching the data which is going to help me surfing from web to web but maybe another person may do it in a different order.

 

 This is the way we read with hypertext.All the web is connected.

There are two men extremely connected with hypertext who are  Ted Nelson and Vannevar Bush.Vannevar Bush wrote an article that established the basis of the hypertext in his article”As We May Think” and Ted Nelson coined the terms hypertext and hypermedia.

Finally, People has to do an effort and try to get used to hypertext. It is not like written text, you have to be more attentive to ideas in order to be able to catch the specific information you want.

 References:

• Hypertext(2009 February,4)In wikipedia , The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:20,  February 6, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext
• ¿Qué es el hipertexto?In UCM Retrieved  21:35 February 6, 2009 from http://www.ucm.es/info/especulo/hipertul/deermer.html
• Hipertexto: Qué es y cómo utilizarlo para escribir  en medios electrónicos.(2009 February,1)In Eduteka.Retrieved 21:42, February 6,2009 from http://www.eduteka.org/Hipertexto1.php

Answer to the second debate.

Orality is a verbal expression used when writing and printing were unknown at all. Studies of oral tradition and orality are pretty much connected. However, orality also touches some other aspects such as political and economial. According to Walter J. Ong, there are two types of orality:

• Primary orality: This refers to those cultures that didn’t have any knowledge of writing.
• Secondary orality: It refers to a much more advanced culture, which used to have kowledge of writing. Moreover, it became the medium of memory.

We might find interesting the researches made by Walter J. Ong. Gathered at W. J. Ong [1982] Orality and literacy: Technologizing of the word as well as some words at E. A. Havelock [1986] The muse learns to write.

About writing we can say that it is the representation of a language through some different signs drawn on something, normally engraved. The first writing evidences go back to 4000 b.c but it has been in a non stop developing through the years. Nowadays, it is known that it has been in two different ways along:

• expressed by ideas.
• represented by sounds.

In spite of that, nowadays hypermedias, which is a more extended word for hypertext, are becoming more common. It consist of adding videos, graphics, audio… for what we used to write, so that they give the chance of interancting with users.

This way, hypermedia enable us, for instance, to build multisensory texts; words can now be explained by hyperlinked videos in what we could consider an example of secondary orality. Besides, new phenomena like electronic literature, written literary texts thought to be read on the screen, have recently appeared, widening the possibilities of human information transmission. And this is just the beginning.

• Hipermedia. (2008, 22) de octubre. Wikipedia, La enciclopedia libre. Fecha de consulta: 18:03, diciembre 4, 2008 from http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hipermedia&oldid=21169753
• Orality. (2008, September 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:04, December 4, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Orality&oldid=238417313
• Escritura (lingüística). (2008, 28) de octubre. Wikipedia, La enciclopedia libre. Fecha de consulta: 18:05, diciembre 4, 2008 from http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Escritura_(ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstica)&oldid=21317754.
• Orality, Literacy, Digitality. Retrieved December 4, 2008, from http://www.tarleton.edu/~lilly/discuss2.htm
• Mary Ann Clark. Orality. Retrieved December 4, 2008, from http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~univ302/StudentWork/S96/Sandman/Orality.html

Group Members: Javier Basterrechea, Yera Espinosa, Saioa Batiz, Adrián Cadenas, Andrea Díaz, Iraia Eizmendi (Group B)