Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook now has clickable hashtags

newsroom.fb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 59 posts

Re: Facebook now has clickable hashtags

#21

Post by [deleted] »

russellsprouts wrote: post #6
rmc wrote: post #3

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.

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]

Re: Facebook now has clickable hashtags

#23

Post by danmaz74 »

bluetidepro wrote: post #20
danmaz74 wrote: post #9

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 reaso…

> "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 pers…

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.

Re: Facebook now has clickable hashtags

#24

Post by kriro »

krapp wrote: post #19
6chars wrote: post #11

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

just start using them now so when pg implements them the content will already be ready. #hashtagallthethings #earlyadopter

More #innovator than #earlyadopter

#xingchasmunderrated

Re: Facebook now has clickable hashtags

#25

Post by phwd »

danmaz74 wrote: post #9

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 reaso…

> can you be both the place where people connect with their closest connections, and where public discourse goes on?

This remains to be seen. They have been working on it just in a really crash, burn and restart process way. Mark Zuckerberg once went through two options for public discourse

* create a Facebook fan page

* open his personal profile to public

The first attempt was silently killed (from what I can see, this is my assumption) and now redirects to his personal page (www.facebook.com/markzuckerberg -> www.facebook.com/zuck). The second attempt, well, as you can see from his profile, it is pretty much closed up now.

Private sharing, as least from the friends I have, has been going on pretty frequently, just not on the timeline

* private groups

* group messages

With messages, it seems Facebook is testing inline message (1) along the status composer (on the homepage) which aligns with the thinking that they are making private sharing less restrictive to action on while maintaining "privacy" (in quotes, as some may not agree to the level of privacy offered)

I have no data to back up how effective private sharing is though.

(1) http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/02/facebook-status-composer-me...

Re: Facebook now has clickable hashtags

#26

Post by loceng »

mpyne wrote: post #18
loceng wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i had to help my uncle, jack, off a horse.

And that doesn't "read" well.

I agree. It's how I type when I don't care or not putting in as much effort - like feeling lazy or perhaps unmotivated or depressed.

Re: Facebook now has clickable hashtags

#28

Post by weinzierl »

rmc wrote: post #3

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.

I agree, except that hashtages are used in other languages as well. I think they even work in every language.

Re: Facebook now has clickable hashtags

#29

Post by rmc »

russellsprouts wrote: post #6
rmc wrote: post #3

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.

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.

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.

Re: Facebook now has clickable hashtags

#30

Post by rmc »

weinzierl wrote: post #28
rmc wrote: post #3

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.

I agree, except that hashtages are used in other languages as well. I think they even work in every language.

Sure, it works for every language. Just like how lots of languages use ! to show an exclaimation on a sentance, or ? to indicate a question.
Post reply on HN