#Hashtag

I found the articles about hashtags to be quite interesting.  I had never really thought about the purpose or meaning of hashtags before reading those articles.  I do not have a twitter account, except for this class, and I have never used a hashtag before, so that is probably why I found the articles to be so interesting.

The article about #Sandy seemed to have good intentions, and from what they said in the article, it seemed that the hashtag was quite useful.  I thought it was a good idea to use the hashtag for that purpose and to help people easily track and follow updates on Sandy relief efforts.  On the other hand, I found the second article, about the purpose of hashtags, to have a very different view.  They seemed to think that hashtags are getting out of hand, do not serve much of a purpose, and that users could be using their 140 characters in more purposeful ways.

From my experience with hashtags, I usually find them to be humorous, and used to exaggerate situations or photos.  Although it seems hashtags can be used for good and bad things, I feel that they do more harm than good.  The second article gave good examples of hashtags that had good intentions, but were used for bad things.  I could have this opinion on them because I do not use them and do not have a twitter account to see all of the good things they could be used for, but overall, I, also, feel that people could be using their characters in more purposeful ways.