Good discussion all round though.

A

I take your point but I’m still not totally convinced – it would be different if (e.g.) #budget, #budget11 and #budget2011 were separate because they’d emerged from separate conversations, but the intention (unless I’m very unrepresentative) of using any of these tags is to be part of ‘the’ conversation about ‘the’ event. Lots of us were asking on Twitter ‘so which is it?’ so clearly there is an appetite for some way of bringing order, even if it’s only among those of us who are relatively new to social media!

That’s just what makes hashtags and tagging in general so powerful, there is so much more there that the simple collecting of information together. That they are so simple is the root of that power, there may be journalistic reasons for wanting more control but they work against the use I think — tools would be interesting, Twitter’s search API isn’t quite up to the job.

(A great introduction to the power of folksomony is here http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/ )

By adding BBC, C4 or Guardian to #cuts, you are inviting/attracting people who share the political leanings of those brands to congregate together in their tweets under those hashtags. If I search for tweets sorted under ‘#C4cuts’, I know I’m going to read tweets with a very different political slant from the one characterising tweets grouped under, say, ‘#telegraphcuts’.

A large group toeing the BBC or C4 line on ‘cuts’, and tweeting the same political interpretation of them under one hashtag, creates a powerful impression of unity of opinion. Which, in turn, helps promote not only the political bias of the tweeters, but also the brand message/image of the publisher associated with the hashtag.

I find it all pretty nauseating, actually. But hey. That’s media.

What would help is a way to have niche hashtags (such as a hashtag for local coverage, as in Mary’s example, or a hashtag for a particular online community – not that I find Alex’s arguments for #BBCBudget especially persuasive!) that aren’t excluded from the wider conversation (yes, you can cram every tweet full of every possible permutation and combination, but after you’ve written ‘#budget #budget11 #budget2011 #BBCBudget #nfkbudget’ you don’t have much room left).

So it would be great if, for example, #budget-nfk tweets showed up when you searched for either #budget or #budget-nfk (without #budget tweets showing up in #budget-nfk searches). Best of both worlds – it would allow ‘branded’ or niche conversations to happen without incurring Faisal Islam’s scorn.

Don’t think it works with hyphens though. Alternatives anyone?