Hashtag or not to Hashtag: What do you think about using hashtags on twitter?

I think everyone here is right in some respects. Hashtags can be used for many things like tracking a conference, integrating with other services (facebook, linkedin), or trying to follow a trending topic. I think that many people are using hashtags too often and in a spammy way. I see #topicsthatnoonecaresabout hashtagged all the time and wonder what the user is thinking. Twitter search and aggregation are getting better by the day with other companies jumping in the mix like google realtime search. In the long term I think hashtags for event tracking and integration will stick around but in general they will fade out.

I think there are a couple use cases for the hashtag:

1. Promoting to new audiences -- there is the holy grail of the retweet, but the hashtag is interesting as a way to reach no audiences because you hit people that are searching that particular interest versus following you. That can only be good. One caveat: your content needs to fit the needs of that hashtag.

2. Having a conversation/following a string -- Twitter is vast now, and i love the hashtag for conferences, discussion groups, conversations, etc.

All, in all, hashtags will become a normal way of life for the twitter-sphere.

I think they are great. The allow tweets to be categorized into areas of interest so they can be easily found and read by others. With modern twitter tools you can filter on these hash tags to see what is being said in your areas of interest. Hashtags also make twitter chats possible.

I think without hashtags a lot of good content would go unnoticed on twitter.

I like the feature. It helps to support a loose meta data layer and can also be used for integration into other apps like #in for Linkedin and other site routing.

It can be usefull, when appropriate. In the Netherlands we use #durftevragen (dare to ask) for instance to reach several other people (besides your own followers) when you have a question. This works very well. Also for seminars etc. it can be useful to function as a stream for the information. Although some people make a sport out of it to hashtag everyting. This can be fun, but also a bit annoying (and difficult to read, when a hashtag is to long).

When appropriate I think its important to use hashtags as they allow your tweet to reach a lot more users than just the ones who follow you. I know from experience that a lot of power users recognized the value of hashtags early on and used them to their advantage in terms of getting in front of new users and building more followers. Ofcourse, use it in a spammy way and you are likely to be tuned out by everyone.

I noticed this site was tweeted out with the #Edchat hashtag. That hashtag was established for participants of #Edchat to be able to follow the discussion in real time.There were times designated for the discussions. Originally, it was thought that the hashtag would only be used at those times. It was not long before many people started hash-tagging any educational tweet with #Edchat. The range of the tweet was extended. If a tweeter had 300 followers his/her tweet would go to those people. By hash-tagging it #Edchat, it goes out to thousands who now follow the hashtag. #Edchat is not the only hashtag that does this. There are many Hashtag staples used to extend a tweet's range to those with a specific interest.

I think they're great as a way of searching for interesting people to follow. They can of course lead to challenges if used unwisely. HabitatUK (the hihg end furniture brand) got themselves into a lot of trouble misusing the hash tag. They used it to push marketing messages using the day's trending topic tags. Of course this is spam. The twitter community spoke in their droves, highlighting the compnay's error in spectacular fashion, leading to an eventual apology for their actions. A cautionary tale...