Hyper-Localising Twitter: Going Beyond Event Hashtags
June 30, 2009 – 4:24 pm | by Daryl TayTommy Vallier from Kingston, where I lived for almost five months, talks about a great idea of local hashtags to make local tweets even more searchable and relevant:
It’s been hard, though, because while big events have dedicated hashtags, smaller going-ons never do.
Because long hashtags don’t make sense thanks to Twitter’s 140 character limit, and over-general hashtags like #singapore would generate too much noise, Tommy suggested breaking up Kingston the same way Canada Post does, by postal code.
Kingston and Singapore have a lot in common. We’re both very small (although Singapore’s population is something like 45x on the same landmass), and we’re quite easily broken up into zones. The problem with hashtags like #sgtweetup and #smbsg and #openroom is that they can only be found by people who know what they’re looking for. The chance of serendiptous discovery is slim to none.
So what if we added in hyper-local hashtagging? Districts like #amk or #cck are too local (I feel) and too limiting (what’s the hashtag for Simei?). Perhaps the answer is in separating it into 5 parts:
#sgn – north
#sgs – south
#sge – east
#sgw – west
#sgc – central
An extra four characters to keep it short and sweet and easy to add on. Of course this isn’t fullproof (I don’t know where I’d put Sengkang), but if we imagine the rough outline of where the MRT trains go, we could possibly give a close to subjective hashtag to add more relevance to our tweets.
What do the Tweeters in Singapore think? Too troublesome? No one cares about local tweets? Or would it help tell you more about events, traffic, weather, news etc? I want to know what you think.
Tags: #openroom, event hashtags, hyper localisation, hyper localization, kingston ontario, local tweets, mrt trains, singapore #sgtweetup, smbsg, tommy vallier, twitter
9 Responses to “Hyper-Localising Twitter: Going Beyond Event Hashtags”
By brian on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
i think it’s a great idea!
By coleman on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
While #singapore might be too much, it would be useful if we could do a search by country, meaning that I’ll only get results posted by those in singapore for instance.
The #sgn, #sgw etc won’t work because most of us do not think in terms of north, east, west, etc very often.
More useful would be #hollandv or #plazasing, except that it’s not so easy to standardize the hashtags.
A location-aware iphone twitter app might help though.
By Ian Timothy on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
“location-aware iphone twitter app” is a good idea but how would people search?
So say you get people twittering near each other, how do you decide if they are talking about happenings in the same zone?
How will the precise points be aggregated when presenting results?
By Robert on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
i agree with @coleman. However, I am sure most people will now about the CDCs and how Singapore is divided up so each CDC can provide their services to the citizens.
[img src=”http://www.cdc.org.sg/MungoBlobs/51%5C273%5Ccdc_03,0.jpg” />
perhaps we can use this as a guide?
Image from CDC website
By Robert on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
sorry about the html tag…
By Daryl Tay on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
@Coleman: I feel like #hollandv or #plazasing is too specific for my liking… for example if I’m heading down to the Orchard area today and want a quick scan for what people are saying, maybe food offers, sales, free events etc, it’s too much trouble to search for #wisma, #taka, #heeren, #lido, #cineleisure, etcetc.
@Robert: CDC groupings may work, assuming that most of the population knows how such groupings work as well? The idea is it has to be general and intuitive enough for common use.
By Robert on Jul 1, 2009 | Reply
@Daryl: I wish it would be easy to be general and intuitive as well. However, from the original post you have linked, the author is recommending demarcations along postal codes. Singapore’s postal code system is similar. But I suspect that the CDC’s areas of responsibilities are divided in similar way too. Most citizens will know which CDC they are under. I do not have interactions with the organisation, but I know I am under Central CDC. We get occasional newsletter from CDC. All we have to do is to promote the grouping, so that others will know where is what #hashtag.
By Daryl Tay on Jul 1, 2009 | Reply
@Robert: Yes, thought Kingston is a little more straightforward than Singapore… I think it’s because their population isn’t quite as dense so they don’t have to break up the physical landmarks quite as much. I guess CDCs can work, but I don’t know how widespread the knowledge is. For eg I don’t know what my CDC is, though I would roughly classify myself to be in the West…
By Robert on Jul 1, 2009 | Reply
@Daryl: Sorry, my bad. CDCs are based on GRCs and SMCs. So the boundaries is still ever fluid (especially when election is round the corner). A easier way now, IMO, is to base on the old district numbers. The first two numbers of a postal code is the district number. Through this, we may be able to divide the island up in all four directions. All we have to do is to generate a more accurate map and find out the roads to demarcate the boundaries.(gothere.sg may be of help since their postal codes geo-tagging is more accurate than Google)