Who put the hashtag in a tweet?

CHENNAI: Did you know that the first tweeting

hashtag

was supposedly created on August 23, 2007?

On this day, Chris Messina (@chrismessina) Tweeted #barcamp. He even calls himself the hashtag inventor on his verified Twitter account.

Messina got the idea of putting a pound symbol in front of words or phrases in tweets to filter them by topic and make them searchable.

Since then it has become part of everyday speech, changing the nature of communication online and becoming one of the most influential symbols of the digital age. August 23 is celebrated as

Hashtag Day

.

So much so that this year, Twitter launched a #HashtagDay emoji that was live for the day and available in multiple languages, including English and Hindi.

In the first half of this year, 12.6B tweets globally included at least one hashtag, proving that people on Twitter are continuing to use the hashtag in creative ways.

Alas Messina never monetised his idea.