via Nieman Journalism Lab by Daniel Victor
"Does this mean the millions of Twitter users who deploy such hashtags to increase their reach are all wrong? Well…yes. We certainly have a history of carrying out myths in technology. Shaking a Polaroid picture didn’t make it develop any faster. Blowing on Nintendo cartridges didn’t help, either. We’ve all been told at some point that hashtags connect you to more people, and it’s been widely accepted as fact.”
Fantastic post by NYT Social Media editor Daniel Victor on the truth behind the hashtag myth. While on occasion, a small group using a hashtag can be useful, on the whole, the hashtag just creates social noise.