What the Trend? Twitter and its #hashtag

If you haven't noticed, hashtags are everywhere. Well, everywhere online. Nowadays, they’re almost unavoidable.

What began as a means of sorting out what's being tweeted at the moment on Twitter has now grown into something more; becoming punchlines on Facebook statuses, daily news and even during your favourite TV shows. In other words, what started out to be a social media trend has progressed into something more meaningful - a communication system that allows you to view a topic of discussion just by searching a key word. Need the next Taylor Swift hit? Hashtag search "Swift" and you'll find a flock of tweeters tweeting a tweet about her latest break-up.

But is this just a trend or will hashtag messages progress into something more meaningful?

In a pre-Facebook age, believe it or not, not too long ago, the only social networks I remember were MySpace and MSN Messenger. What a wasteland, right? These are the places we went to hang, to chat; these were our resources for updated information, and gossip within the world. Through pictures and status updates, the public even had access to some of the most intimate moments of people’s lives. Since then, the internet and technology has advanced to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, even Instagram. And no, Instagram is not when your grandmother instantly gives birth to her daughter's baby.

We've come along way since then. I'm losing track of all the technology I have to keep track of.

The one thing that has stayed consistent over the years is the ability to update one's "status" and share it with the online community. However, the experts have re-vamped everything since then. With one click on a single hyperlink (whatever is "trending"), we now have access to millions of people’s thoughts and opinions on the same subject. Thanks to the #hashtag.

In 2011, if you can remember, some of the top trends, or as we now know them as "hashtags" were; #egypt , #tigerblood , #japan and #superbowl . These were the most favourite topics that were discussed through the online world last year. Information was shared when Egypt was going through a new revolution; when Japan was dealing with a tsunami and an earthquake, the hashtag helped send along prayers from across the globe; and who can forget Charlie Sheen's "WINNING!" phase?

But, are hashtags just a temporary obsession?

Social networks have a habit of eventually dying out in popularity and significance. It goes well with the idea of “out with the old, in with the new.” If Twitter were to become unpopular, that would probably mean hashtags will fade to black as well. As long as Twitter continues to grow stronger, hashtags will remain and may even become something more independent. Its independence depends on how long Twitter is trending.

However, there are possibly a few who think hashtags will trend until the day no one pays attention to them anymore. The popularity will fade away and something bigger and better will take its place in the headlines of news articles or on the bottom corner of your television screen during series finales, i.e. House or Desperate Housewives.

Trends come and go, and this year, we'll see #London2012 along with #Skyfall (The Bond film and the amazing Felix Baumgartner jump from space) reaching the top of the hashtag chart.

But very few things nowadays are timeless. Will hashtags weather over time? Probably, but that's up to the twits out there to figure it out.

Signing off... #a_hock

-Andrew

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