6 ms·

Facebook now has clickable hashtags

52 points by 6chars 13y ago

robk 13y ago
While it makes logical sense I can't help but be saddened by the further misuse of hash tagging by the clueless.
- jgross206 13y ago
  what's the proper use? I'm one of the clueless
  - zemo 13y ago
    hashtags allow the user to describe to the machine how to categorize a piece of text. So, for example, "I just stepped in shit. #winning" is a way for a user to have the sentence "I just stepped in shit" categorized in a specific way; not necessarily the way the machine would have chosen to categorize it. You're not supposed to just hashtag every word. Optimally, if another human clicks on one of your hashtags, they get to see some thematically related content. On some networks, though (Instagram in particular), hashtags are used to game the system; since there are discovery featured built around hashtags, merely including a popular hashtag can improve your visibility. So self-indulgent teens will hashtag their selfies with #food, because it's a primitive form of SEO gaming, and they wind up getting more likes. Or like with Go, people who code Go never actually call it "golang", but #golang is the canonical hashtag because it's more specific than #go, which is ... noise.
rmc 13y ago
A linguistic change is happening in the English language. We're adding a new class of word, the "referent case", which is signified by a # before the word. The referent case shows the topic of a sentence, just like how the nominative case shows the actor of a verb, etc. We've already added the vocative case to English with the @ grammatical marking.
- russellsprouts 13y ago
  That's pretty interesting. I wonder how smileys fit into our grammar. I often wonder what our typical grammar will look like in 50-100 years or more. I'm sure something will survive.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - rmc 13y ago
    Oh I forgot about smilies/emoticons, they are a new non-word symbol that we're adding to indicate the tone/mood of the 'speaker' of the sentence.
- ypcx 13y ago
  and it will take another 20 years before we realize that in most cases we don't really need upper case letters. now burn me for heresy.
  - Zikes 13y ago
    Forgive the crudeness of the example, but there's a huge difference between the following two sentences: I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse. i had to help my uncle jack off a horse.
    - Yhippa 13y ago
      "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo...
    - loceng 13y ago
      i had to help my uncle, jack, off a horse.
      - 13y ago
kriro 13y ago
I just tried it with a post that included #nsa and it's not clickable. Not rolled out yet or am I too dumb?
- jedanbik 13y ago
  It doesn’t work for me, either. Maybe it takes time to propagate changes to every Facebook user? No clue.
  - onedev 13y ago
    Slow rollout, FB-style.
- vfl0 13y ago
  They're really slow with rolling out new features it seems, as proven by the re-design of the news feed. Myself and others haven't received it yet.
- kriro 13y ago
  Works now :)
geehsien 13y ago
#beautiful
danmaz74 13y ago
As someone who created a startup around a hashtags search engine (1), I'm very glad of this development from a business point of view - the more hashtags are used, the better. As I already wrote (2), though, I'm not sure if this is a great move for Facebook in the long run. Facebook owns the incredibly compelling core expectation of "easily sharing with friends and family through the Internet". But, for obvious reasons, public posts and comments are preferable for advertising purposes, so Facebook is also trying to eat Twitter's pie. Problem is, can you be both the place where people connect with their closest connections, and where public discourse goes on? My guess is that you can't, and if this move really succeeds - which is entirely possible - this could be the start of the end of FB's domination of the "privately sharing" space - which is less easily monetized, but much more compelling than the "publicly sharing" one. (1) http://hashtagify.me http://hashtagify.me (2) http://danmaz74.me/2013/05/16/facebook-hashtags-when-monetization-clashes-with-branding/ http://danmaz74.me/2013/05/16/facebook-hashtags-when-monetiz... EDIT: some corrections
- bluetidepro 13y ago
  > "My guess is that you can't..." Why would you guess that you can't be that place? Personally, it would make much more sense to have a place where I share all my stories and then choose whether it should be for the public or just personal (like how it's currently done with Facebook). That makes more sense to me than having two separate sites to share public vs personal, as long as there is still the aspect that personal DOES, indeed, stay personal.
  - danmaz74 13y ago
    There are two problems. The first, most obvious one is that of clutter (not to say spam). The more public updates are in your feed, the less space there is for your personal - and more important - ones. Granted, there are solutions to this problem (groups), but how many people are even able to use them? The second, more subtle - but more fundamental IMHO - one is that of Facebook's brand. If this succeeds, it will inevitably be diluted. In the long run, this could open the space to some competitor who focuses completely on the private space. This is difficult due to network effects, but not at all impossible.
6chars 13y ago
pg, when will HN be getting hashtags? This is an essential feature!
- krapp 13y ago
  just start using them now so when pg implements them the content will already be ready. #hashtagallthethings #earlyadopter
  - kriro 13y ago
    More #innovator than #earlyadopter #xingchasmunderrated
- nicwolff 13y ago
  Soon, but each hashtag on a page will only work until its continuation gets garbage collected.
ghrev 13y ago
#slowclap
allanberger 13y ago
http://newsroom.fb.com/News/633/Public-Conversations-on-Facebook http://newsroom.fb.com/News/633/Public-Conversations-on-Face...
medell 13y ago
Or clickable mot-dièses in France. Le sigh. http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/30/france-bids-adieu-to-the-word-hashtag/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/30/france-bids-adieu-to-the...
Yhippa 13y ago
I actually find friends who actually speak hashtags as a joke nowadays. I wonder if this will be a permanent thing say 20 years from now?

52 points by 6chars 13y ago

robk 13y ago

While it makes logical sense I can't help but be saddened by the further misuse of hash tagging by the clueless.

jgross206 13y ago
what's the proper use? I'm one of the clueless
- zemo 13y ago
  hashtags allow the user to describe to the machine how to categorize a piece of text. So, for example, "I just stepped in shit. #winning" is a way for a user to have the sentence "I just stepped in shit" categorized in a specific way; not necessarily the way the machine would have chosen to categorize it. You're not supposed to just hashtag every word. Optimally, if another human clicks on one of your hashtags, they get to see some thematically related content. On some networks, though (Instagram in particular), hashtags are used to game the system; since there are discovery featured built around hashtags, merely including a popular hashtag can improve your visibility. So self-indulgent teens will hashtag their selfies with #food, because it's a primitive form of SEO gaming, and they wind up getting more likes. Or like with Go, people who code Go never actually call it "golang", but #golang is the canonical hashtag because it's more specific than #go, which is ... noise.

rmc 13y ago

A linguistic change is happening in the English language. We're adding a new class of word, the "referent case", which is signified by a # before the word. The referent case shows the topic of a sentence, just like how the nominative case shows the actor of a verb, etc. We've already added the vocative case to English with the @ grammatical marking.

russellsprouts 13y ago
That's pretty interesting. I wonder how smileys fit into our grammar. I often wonder what our typical grammar will look like in 50-100 years or more. I'm sure something will survive.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rmc 13y ago
  Oh I forgot about smilies/emoticons, they are a new non-word symbol that we're adding to indicate the tone/mood of the 'speaker' of the sentence.
ypcx 13y ago
and it will take another 20 years before we realize that in most cases we don't really need upper case letters. now burn me for heresy.
- Zikes 13y ago
  Forgive the crudeness of the example, but there's a huge difference between the following two sentences: I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse. i had to help my uncle jack off a horse.
  - Yhippa 13y ago
    "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo...
  - loceng 13y ago
    i had to help my uncle, jack, off a horse.
    - 13y ago

kriro 13y ago

I just tried it with a post that included #nsa and it's not clickable. Not rolled out yet or am I too dumb?

jedanbik 13y ago
It doesn’t work for me, either. Maybe it takes time to propagate changes to every Facebook user? No clue.
- onedev 13y ago
  Slow rollout, FB-style.
vfl0 13y ago
They're really slow with rolling out new features it seems, as proven by the re-design of the news feed. Myself and others haven't received it yet.
kriro 13y ago
Works now :)

geehsien 13y ago

#beautiful

danmaz74 13y ago

As someone who created a startup around a hashtags search engine (1), I'm very glad of this development from a business point of view - the more hashtags are used, the better. As I already wrote (2), though, I'm not sure if this is a great move for Facebook in the long run. Facebook owns the incredibly compelling core expectation of "easily sharing with friends and family through the Internet". But, for obvious reasons, public posts and comments are preferable for advertising purposes, so Facebook is also trying to eat Twitter's pie. Problem is, can you be both the place where people connect with their closest connections, and where public discourse goes on? My guess is that you can't, and if this move really succeeds - which is entirely possible - this could be the start of the end of FB's domination of the "privately sharing" space - which is less easily monetized, but much more compelling than the "publicly sharing" one. (1) http://hashtagify.me http://hashtagify.me (2) http://danmaz74.me/2013/05/16/facebook-hashtags-when-monetization-clashes-with-branding/ http://danmaz74.me/2013/05/16/facebook-hashtags-when-monetiz... EDIT: some corrections

bluetidepro 13y ago
> "My guess is that you can't..." Why would you guess that you can't be that place? Personally, it would make much more sense to have a place where I share all my stories and then choose whether it should be for the public or just personal (like how it's currently done with Facebook). That makes more sense to me than having two separate sites to share public vs personal, as long as there is still the aspect that personal DOES, indeed, stay personal.
- danmaz74 13y ago
  There are two problems. The first, most obvious one is that of clutter (not to say spam). The more public updates are in your feed, the less space there is for your personal - and more important - ones. Granted, there are solutions to this problem (groups), but how many people are even able to use them? The second, more subtle - but more fundamental IMHO - one is that of Facebook's brand. If this succeeds, it will inevitably be diluted. In the long run, this could open the space to some competitor who focuses completely on the private space. This is difficult due to network effects, but not at all impossible.

6chars 13y ago

pg, when will HN be getting hashtags? This is an essential feature!

krapp 13y ago
just start using them now so when pg implements them the content will already be ready. #hashtagallthethings #earlyadopter
- kriro 13y ago
  More #innovator than #earlyadopter #xingchasmunderrated
nicwolff 13y ago
Soon, but each hashtag on a page will only work until its continuation gets garbage collected.

ghrev 13y ago

#slowclap

allanberger 13y ago

http://newsroom.fb.com/News/633/Public-Conversations-on-Facebook http://newsroom.fb.com/News/633/Public-Conversations-on-Face...

medell 13y ago

Or clickable mot-dièses in France. Le sigh. http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/30/france-bids-adieu-to-the-word-hashtag/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/30/france-bids-adieu-to-the...

Yhippa 13y ago

I actually find friends who actually speak hashtags as a joke nowadays. I wonder if this will be a permanent thing say 20 years from now?