Charleston hashtag summit

If you follow the local Twitterverse, you may have noticed chatter Sunday and today regarding a #CHSHASH Summit Tuesday at lunch. And you probably asked yourself "What the hell are these geeks talking about?"

For those of you who are new to the concept, hashtags are form of folksonomy.We make them up on the fly, generally, and the successful hashtags spread around the community and become near universal (#iestories) without any centralized direction. When this happens, it becomes really easy to organize live information streams via Search Twitter.

But variation in hashtags can cause nagging inefficiencies. For instance, most local Tweeters tag their Charleston-related Tweets with #CHS. (our airport code, requiring only four characters). But many people continue to use #CHARLESTON. Result? No matter which term you use, you're missing something.

Our thought? If we could get a group of local Tweeters -- particularly those involved in the creation or aggregation of original news content -- to agree on a standard set of news-related hashtags, then EVERYONE could benefit from this by creating live RSS feeds out of these search terms.

You can even add these streams to your website and have them update automatically. And if we could create a repository for those terms, then we could cooperatively add value to what is now a chaotic stream. Doesn't cost anything, shouldn't hurt anybody.

So maybe we'll filter all our crime news by #CHScrime. Or business news by #CHSbiz. I don't know. I don't care. Just as long as everyone generally agrees, that's the hash I'll use.

So if you're interested in this topic, stop by Juanita Greenberg's Nacho Royale for lunch on Tuesday, March 24. You don't have to be a newsie, or even a techie, and if you can't make it, we'll still share what we agree on with you.

I'll get there early, try to nab a seat out back if the weather is nice. Plan on starting to show up around 12:30, with business around 1 p.m. Questions? xarkdude@gmail.com or 469-3467.

Comments

[Heather Solos]

I'll be there.