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/

Web 2.0

Basically, the Web 2.0 is a new style of using the Internet. Before now, the Internet was like a big library that had a lot of information. However, nowadays it is seen as a new means of communication. It is a place where people can share information. Moreover, the web is based in communities of users where they share information with the help of blogs, wikis and social-networking sites.

In times of the web 1.0 the user only downloaded  finished webs. But now apart from doing that ,they also do personal contents. For that reason we can say that with web 2.0 the user is more active. There are several causes that can explain this involvement of the user with the web: the increasingly number of users, the broadband…So the web 2.0 is not a technology, is an attitude from the users.

 

WordPress is one of the blogs that people use for

sharing information.

 The  man who established this term was Tim O’ Reilly in the year 1993. He wanted the people to know that the content was not text, it was a way of interact between the users. Nevertheless,It was not after the O’ Reilly Media web 2.0 conference in 2004 that the concept became notable. According to Tim O’ Reilly:

                                                 “ Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform”

  References:

•  Web 2.0.(2009 February 7) In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:00 , February 7,2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
• ¿Qué es la web 2.0?(2007 , August 03) In youtube. Retrieved 16:25, February 7,2009,from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJOhQ3z5Q0
• ¿Qué es la web 2.0?(2005, october 27)In maestrosdelweb. Retrieved 16:45, February 7, 2009, from http://www.maestrosdelweb.com/editorial/web2/