It might seem unthinkable, but if the rumblings that have come out of Twitter over the last few days are anything to go by, it looks like the company is intent on getting rid of the famous Hashtag and ‘@’ reply handles that have become so synonymous with the platform.
Twitter’s Head Of News, Vivian Schiller, recently described hashtags and @ replies as “arcane” and hinted that they would be ‘streamlined’ to help new users better understand the concept of Twitter. Removing the ‘scaffolding’ of the service as they call it, making it more like Facebook, who already use this approach re: mentions in posts.
Reaction has been somewhat negative so far among users and online commentators but my bet is that it will be the same as usual when there is a fundamental change on a social media platform, at the beginning there will be a few grumbles, but users will get used to it, get over it, and ultimately forget what it was like before hand.
