#TheInventor
On August 23, 2007, the first tweet containing a hashtag read as follows: "How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?" Thus the hashtag was born, and its creator goes by the name Chris Messina who at the time was an open web advocate for Google (Gannes, Liz). ​
This is the original tweet posted by Chris Messina himself. What Messina did not know at the time was that he would make tweets more meaningful and findable which are traits that many fellow users appreciate. However, Twitter users were not fond of this new aspect of Twitter as they were often labeled as "ugly" or "awkward" by users. As time passed, users found hashtags easier to use and convenient. Messina stated that he was proud of invention hashtags because "they're a hack and they prove that simple solutions are often the best ways to solve a problem, rather than waiting for a technology solution" (Gannes, Liz).
#TheTweet
#HashtagUses
1.​ A hashtag signals that there is a particular topic to a tweet. For instance, many job recruiters post jobs on Twitter with the hashtags #job #hiring. If a user was to search for either of those terms, he or she would be able to view all of the tweets posted in real time that contain those hashtags.

2. Users can easily search for topics and view all of the tweets that contain that specific topics. Likewise, putting hashtags in your tweets make them more searchable for whatever topic you are tweeting about.

3. Users can create their own hashtags and then ask other users to use that hastag for a particular reason, usually to promote and even or cause. For example, when Hurricane Sandy swept through much of the east coast this year, users who tweeted about the hurricane used hashtags such as #HurricaneSandy or #SandyRelief and even just #Sandy. If one were to click on or search for these hastags, all of the tweets that contained these hashtags would be made seeable. This is an important way to find tweets that one would want to "re-tweet" or repost to their own list of followers. Hashtags assist tweets in becoming viral.

4. Many users have their Twitter account linked to other accounts such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Each time a hashtag appears in one of their tweets, it will automatically post it to a Facebook or LinkedIn profile, if you choose to do so in your account settings.

5. Hastags are a great way to connected with other users or find other users to follow. If a user wishes to target a particular industry, they can type hashtags into the search bar and locate the people who are tweeting about those specific hashtags. Users can then look at those Twitter pages and decided whether or not they would wish to follow them.

#TheDefinition
According to the Twitter.com Help Page, A "hashtag" is "The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages."
#TwitterStatistics
- → Thus far in the year 2012, it is recorded that Twitter contains over 465 million accounts, of those accounts, Twitter users tweet approximately 175 million tweets a day.
- →The top three countries using Twitter are:
- → United States with 101.7 million users
- →Japan with 29.9 million users
-  →Brazil with 33.3 million users
- → 11 Twitter accounts are created every second.
- →11 million Twitter accounts are added every day.
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(Courtesy of Infographics: 2012)
(Courtesy of Infographics: 2012)
