TechCrunch reports that Twitter has started linking hashtags. They note that Friendfeed already does this.
Now that they are hyperlinked, when you click on a hashtag, you are led to the search result page for the specific hashtag. Others have been implementing this; FriendFeed (big surprise) has been doing this for awhile. Some of the Twitter clients, including the desktop versions of Tweetie and Seesmic Desktop also provide hyperlinks to hashtags.
Turning the hashtags into links makes good sense and it will increase the usage of hashtags. A couple downsides with hashtags - they shorten the length of a tweet and they are often used by spammers, like they were today with news of Sarah Palin's resignation.
You can see the hashtags turned into links into graphic of a search for the #hashtags hashtag
Bing Search Returns Tweet From Popular Twitter Accounts
Microsoft's new search engine Bing is now indexing tweets from some popular Twitter accounts. If you search some of the more popular Twitter accounts on Bing it will return a couple recent tweets. For example if you search "Celebrity Gossip Twitter" on Bing it returns a couple of the latest tweets by @celebritygossip.
Bing says they picked a few thousand Twitter accounts to start with but could add more later.
We're not indexing all of Twitter at this time.... just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start. We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets. We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter's public API to surface Tweets in people search. We'd love to hear your feedback as we think through future possibilities in real time search.
"Tweet Tweet Twitter" is a new song from Irish Pop Group Tinselitis who are made up of Sean McCarthy, Deborah Confrey and Jonathan Jacobson. Here's the music video:
IBM employee Andy Stanford-Clark has wired his home automation system so that it sends a tweet when windows or open or lights are turned on. The home also sends a tweet when a mouse is caught in a trap. Andy's twittering house can be found here on Twitter. Take a look:
Sports Illustrated has an article about Twitter and sports enthusiasts. The article also discusses some professional athletes who are using Twitter.
In fact, the entire sports world is obsessed with the microblogging tool, through which users update their web audience with frequent messages of 140 characters or less. For example college coaches, who can showcase their programs to web-savvy prospects and their parents, are copycatting each other onto Twitter. Pete Carroll, John Calipari, and Charlie Weis -- screen name "NDHFC" -- are among the big names with Twitter pages (somehow, it's hard to imagine Weis' former boss, Bill Belichick, huddled in his hoodie, tweeting away secrets from the film-room).
The tool is scoring for the pro leagues too. All the majors -- the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NASCAR -- shoot their followers useful information like scores, schedules, and highlight clips, and inane chatter like this, from the NFL's Twitter page: "Boomer Esiason sighting here at NFL quarters." Whoopee. What's more relevant is that on draft day, the Atlanta Falcons and New York Jets both scooped Roger Goodell by announcing their first-round picks on Twitter before the commish called their names from the podium. According to trackingtwitter.com, the NBA, which claims more than 600,000 followers, has a greater Twitter audience than all brand accounts besides Whole Foods and online shoe retailer Zappos. "Our favorite feed," the site said of the NBA, which sits comfortably ahead of Starbucks in the Twitter top 25. "Great mix of content."
Some resources to find athlete tweets and twitter accounts can be found here, here and here. Microblogging is a great tool for tracking sports and for people to share their thoughts while watching sports. It's been obvious lately that sports have become big on Twitter. During the NBA finals keywords related to the games like "Kobe" have regularly appeared in the trending topics section.
Google Operating System reports that Google is planning a microblogging search engine that will let users search tweets and updates from other microblogging sites.
Much like Google Blog Search, Google's microblogging search service will sort the results by relevancy and it also be integrated with Google's web search engine: the keywords that are frequently used in recent posts will trigger a MicroBlogsearch universal search group.
On the plus side, a microblog search engine can return the latest information about an event or topic. On the negative side, there is the potential for the microblog services to become filled with spam and repetitive entries. The more popular they get the more likely that is. Filters can help with these problems and Google's microblogging search engine will likely implement multiple filters.
Retailers have relied on email newsletters to reach customers over the past several years but they would be wise to try Twitter. Many retailers are already using Twitter to inform customers about special deals, store events and new products. Retailers could also use Twitter to search for complaints about their stores.
There are already at least 200+ retailers on Twitter. Some of the retailers with large numbers of followers include:
Based on these large follower totals some people clearly don't mind getting tweets from stores. Retailers not on Twitter are missing out on an opportunity to reach customers. You can find a list of 200+ retailers using Twitter in the Twitter Store Directory.
Caitlin Hill Sets Impressive MC Hammer Tweet Record
Last month, Caitlin Hill at Rocketboom set an important record by sending seven tweets to MC Hammer on Twitter (@mchammer) in just one minute. Well done Caitlin.
Twitter is for both the young and old. Ivy Bean is a senior citizen who is actively using Twitter. She is 104 years young. Her Twitter account can be found at @IvyBean104. A story in The Telegraph says agents from Geek Squad helped Ivy get active on Twitter.
Mrs Bean was already a keen Facebook user but members of the IT support service the Geek Squad helped the pensioner get bang up to date.
The Geek Squad set her up and gave her some navigation training and top tips on how to manage the social networking phenomenon.
The support group is now challenging the Twittersphere to find out if there is actually someone older than Ivy posting updates on their whereabouts, updates and activities. Make sure you catch her before she logs off for her daily weekday appointment with Noel Edmonds on 'Deal or No Deal'.
She now has over 16,000 followers on Twitter thanks to buzz that spread on Twitter after the story ran in the Telegraph.
Loic Le Meur says he asked Google co-founder Larry Page what he though about Twitter search. Larry Page says he was always saying that Google needed real time search. He also says that now that Twitter is being used for search people at Google know they need to compete.
"I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real time search. At first, my team laughed and did not believe me. With Twitter, now they know they have to do it. Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about realtime."
Twitter is very useful for realtime search but even more so than Google News and other news sources you tend to get the same information repeated over and over. The key will be who can provide the best filter or filters for the endless stream of current tweets and news.
Twitter Quitters: Nielsen Online Stands By Twitter 40% Retention Rate
Nielsen Online recently blogged that Twitter only retains about 40% of the people it attracts. Nielsen says that post received a lot of criticism from the Twitter community. They were criticized for not including third-party applications so Nielsen went back and tested 30 websites and applications that feed into the Twitter community. David Martin, Vice President, Primary Research, Nielsen Online says the results from testing third-party Twitter app were similar with about 60% abandoning Twitter after a month.
So, as an update, we went beyond just Twitter.com, adding in more than 30 websites and applications that feed into the Twitter community including: TweetDeck, TwitPic, Twitstat, Hootsuite, EasyTweets, Tumblr, and many others.
The results verified our initial findings: about 60 percent of people on Twitter end up abandoning the service after a month. The year-long retention curve looks very much the same as the one for just Twitter.com.
Twitter has received a great deal of press lately. Even Oprah did a show on the service. A lot of new users have been coming to the service in 2009. Some of them may have tried Twitter out quickly but then returned to communication tools they are more familiar with and where their friends are. Some people may be busy and not have time to invest the time in figuring out Twitter. It's not a surprise there are Twitter quitters but it is suprising the percentage is so high. It may be a good sign for rival social networking tools if Twitter can't retain more than 40% of its users - unless these are people who turn out to be uninterested in social networking altogether.
Here's a video with David Martin explaining his findings and saying they are standing behind the 60% Twitter quitter percentage.
The White House blogged today about the launch of MySpace, Twitter and Facebook accounts for the White House. The White House says most of the content will come from the White House RSS feed but they do want to hear from followers. The blog posts says, "The WhiteHouse blog (RSS) will power a lot of the content in these networks, but we're looking forward to hearing from our fans, friends and followers."
Twitter has been criticized for being unreliable and misinforming when it comes to the swine flu. The truth is that it depends on who you follow. On any subject and topic you will find people on Twitter spreading both reliable and unreliable information. People do this in the real world too - they spread rumors, theories and sometimes people even share things that they know are not true. That's just how people are. Try a Twitter search for swine flu and you will find retweets of swine flu news, confusion about whether it is safe to eat pork (it is safe), jokes, people saying they are afraid and even conspiracy theories.
Most people try and share the truth with one another and most people are doing that on Twitter. A lot of people are also theorizing and worrying and they are expressing their thoughts on Twitter. There's not anything wrong with that. It's just human nature.
If you want reliable information then you need to follow reliable news sources. The most reliable is likely CDC's Emergency twitter, located at @CDCemergency. There's also @health, @Pandemicflu, @birdflu, @SwineFlu2009, @WHOnews and @swine_flu. The @breakingnews has been covering the swine flu frequently as well. There are also numerous local news twitters that people can follow. Visit the website of your local tv news website and it likely has a Twitter. You can also try searching for it using the Find People tool.
You can also find a growing list of swine flu resources here on HealthNewsBlog.com.
Sports Illustrated has an 
Google Operating System 
Twitter is for both the young and old. Ivy Bean is a senior citizen who is actively using Twitter. She is 104 years young. Her Twitter account can be found at 
Loic Le Meur 
The White House 