@, #, + = New Social Symbols?
<< by Renee Revetta on June 30th, 2011
This morning I saw a post on Facebook – a friend was confused about all of the “#” (hashtags) he was seeing in Facebook statuses. I remember a few years ago, when TweetDeck first allowed users to share the same update to Twitter and Facebook, I was sure to not send a status update to Facebook that included a “#”. But now, are users incorporating hashtags into their Facebook status as a new social norm? Is “#WINNING” in your Facebook status no longer a #FAIL? …Heh.
These social symbols are taking over, but whether it’s because of their convenience or cool factor is yet to be known.
@ – the nameless “at” symbol
The “@” was introduced by Twitter, and then Facebook adopted the trend by allowing users to use the symbol to “tag” their friends and Pages in status updates. Twitter uses the symbol in front of user names to direct a message to that person. Twitter and Facebook now use the symbol in a very similar fashion.
