Dive summary:
- Facebook is working on incorporating the hashtag (#) symbol into it's platform; the symbol is most heavily associated with rival social network Twitter.
- The move is another sign of the increasing rivalry between Facebook and Twitter for advertising dollars; Facebook, previously thought of for close friends and family, is progressively moving into Twitter's space of real-time broadcasting for a wide spread audience.
- Although it is unclear how far along the Facebook is in the hashtag process, the function of the symbol will likely be similar to Twitter's use of a way to pull up related conversations about a topic.
From the article:
"Twitter users came up with the hashtag more than five years ago as a way for people to collect tweets on a favorite topic, like a news event or interest groups. Hashtags also have morphed into shorthands for cultural memes, helping to catapult Twitter into the public eye. For example, commentary about actor Charlie Sheen's 2011 publicity campaign against his bosses from the television series "Two and Half Men" was commonly appended with the hashtag '#winning.'"