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using hashtags long before they were officially supported by Twitter.
Hashtags were invented as a way to communicate ideas within text. They
are created by typing a pound symbol followed by any combination of
words. One example of a hashtag would be #hashtag.
These hashtags were used to explain what a post was about in as little
characters as possible. After all, users only had 140 characters to work
with! A user posting about food might put #food at the end of a post. At
first, these hashtags were only text markings and could not be interacted
with in any other way. This all changed in July of 2009 when hashtags
were officially adopted by Twitter.
From that point forward, any hashtag became a link that users could
click to view any other posts that contained the same hashtag. It was an
easy way to search for people who were talking about the same thing,
and it made the Twitter community feel more connected than ever before.
In 2012, Twitter introduced the cashtag, which is a dollar sign followed
by a combination of words, to allow users to track companies and their
stocks. One example of a cashtag is $twitter.
Twitter is not a typical social media website. Users do not add each
other as friends. Instead, they follow each other’s Twitter accounts. Long
before users could physically link to other users using a similar functional-
ity to hashtags, they came up with a way of their own to communicate
Research Project
Twitter has changed a lot over the years, but its basic idea has
mostly stayed the same. Using the Internet, research how Twitter
has changed since it was first released to the public in 2007. List
three ways the website has improved and explain where you think
Twitter should focus its efforts in the future.