Thought Remixer

I’m still writing up the series explaining Twitter in 3 posts. However, this is a common Twitter question that I would like to explain in more than 140 characters. If you have no idea what Twitter is, then you might want to check this post out.

Twitter users @AroundHarlem and @iluvblackwomen started an interesting conversation about how to find other black people on Twitter. After all, there were a few problems with the current system.

1. A short bio that only allows 160 characters.
2. Some people are uncomfortable putting up their own picture as an avatar.
3. There’s no real easy way to search.

While ideas such as "creating a black twitter” group went around, even I didn’t like the idea. I mean, look what happened to BlackPlanet. So, the next idea called for using a hashtag as part of your twitter update. A hashtag is simply a tag that helps organize information.

#blck is a tag created at first with the idea that you can identify yourself as a “black person” on Twitter. However, I threw in an idea that it can also be use for black-related news and links. At first, they did not agree with it, but eventually, the community have spoken and started using #blck as a way to say “I’m black and I’m proud” as well as show some sites, videos, sayings or tweets of black-centric interest.

So, why is hashtags a good way to organize data on twitter? Here’s a good example:

Mumbai Attacks

November 26, 2008 references to Mumbai attacks start appearing in people’s Twitter updates as #mumbai. With this, people can search up any up-to-date information in regards to the Mambai attacks in India that happened during that day. Twitter, for one day, became a more valuable way of reporting the news as it happens.

However, keep in mind that hashtags can be abused by anyone. They can create a tag and they what they tweet about is not related at all. So, keep in mind when using a hashtag, be respectable.

Hashtags can also be used:

• At events if you are updating from one.
• Televisions shows.
• Items or people of interest to you.
• Disasters.
• Or just random things… like one I created for #iHate.

I used Twitter’s Search Engine to look up hashtags, but there are other ways of looking up hashtags.

• Hashtags
• Twemes.com

And Hashtags can be used to form communities, such as this one:

www.blck.me was created to make it easier to follow the #blck tweets. To join the community and share your thoughts, you don’t need a secret hand shake or to join another site. Just type #blck along with your update. It’s that simple.

Thanks to @waynesutton and @iluvblackwomen, we now have a way of seeing updates from people who using the #blck hashtag. However, I do have one question:

Who’s going to explain how #blck is use and why we need to use it?

I guess we will never find that out. *rolls eyes n’ smiles*

Shout outs to Wayne Sutton for placing me as an interesting “#blck tweeple” to follow.