Facebook Hashtags Rolled Out Wednesday: Copying Twitter?
Following in the footsteps of Twitter, there is now a Facebook Hashtag to easily sort through discussions and topics on the social networking giant.
The hashtag has come into Internet prominence thanks to Twitter's use of it to create online trends and popular subjects.
Now Facebook wants a piece of the "hashtag action" and has adopted this too along with the sites, Tumblr and Pinterest.
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"Hashtags on Facebook allow you to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion. When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you'll see a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic," Facebook said in a statement according to NBC News.
Facebook has also likely adopted the hashtag so it can fully see the interests of its users just by looking up what they are talking about. It is a surefire way to connect large groups of people, as clicking on a hashtag will take you to a news feed exclusively for those conversations.
"During primetime television alone, there are between 88 and 100 million Americans engaged on Facebook - roughly a Super Bowl-sized audience every single night. The recent 'Red Wedding' episode of Game of Thrones, received over 1.5 million mentions on Facebook, representing a significant portion of the 5.2 million people who watched the show. And this year's Oscars buzz reached an all-time high on Facebook with over 66.5 million interactions, including likes, comments, and posts," wrote Greg Lindley on Facebook reports NBC.
Some are crying foul at Facebook and calling them a copycat because this pushes the Twitter similarities over the line.
Facebook has adopted quite a few ideas from Twitter other than the hashtags. They have taken the @mentions, a "follow" button, along with having verified celebrity accounts, and the simple "What's happening?" message in an empty text box.
"It's not that Twitter didn't seek inspiration elsewhere. It did and continues to do so. So does Google+. The problem with this feature aping is that the competing social networks are slowly becoming clones of one another, feature by feature. Soon there might be little to tell them apart from their brand names," said the IBNLive.com.
