I have just listened to the co-founder of Twitter on TED and I was fascinated to hear about how twitter has evolved from the original idea and how people have invented new ways of organising and getting their messages across.
The @ and # symbols are just two of the key devices integrated into Twitter at a later stage.
The @ symbol allows to you to refer to people by their twitter username, i.e @gicela. You can use this at any point in your tweet and it’s also public.
The # tag is used to refer to a group of people following the same topic, for example a fundrasing event #Twestival or a conference #SXSW. You can create your own #tag to point to people to the same topic of conversation.
In the last week or two, a new service called wefollow has created a new Twitter directory based on people assigning ‘tags’ to themselves, e.g. #gardening, #biking, etc.
Visit the official support pages for more on Twitter basics.
Listen to Evan Williams on his TED talk, and the Twitter feedback at the end.
Evan Williams on listening to twitter users
