Finally, a reason for the # symbol

By: Melissa | February 24th, 2009

Twitter Trends is the new hot fresh fun thingamajig sweeping the internets nation right now. Basically it boils down to that funky # symbol people put in their individual tweets. The purpose being the rest of us can follow and add to an impromptu feed for that new fangled topic we are suddenly aching to write about and that we just pulled out of our collective asses. So the starting point for this impromptu mess is here but since Twitter (like all good web applications) released it’s own API, there are plenty of programs out there for you to choose from to follow various tweets and trends. My fave right now is Tweetgrid which I used Sunday night to read and add to the insane flurry of comments the entire freaking world made during the Oscars — by adding the word #oscars to my Twitters. There’s even a Trending Topics Twitter account you can follow which will give you updates on which topics are the most popular at any given time. Pretty cool stuff. So I’d like to go ahead and declare to the portion of the twttering world who follow women’s soccer that when we watch these games (and the games will totally be available on tv or online or both — ahem) that we add comments and include the all encompassing #wps trend tag when we do (I noticed 2 people have done this so far on all of Twitter). Because I will be there with you all doing this and I really don’t want to be the only one on the entire internet putting a #wps in my tweets and only my friends wondering what the hell I’m doing.

And on top of all of that, I’d like to invite WPS investor Steve Nash to join in. He already has an account – even though he doesn’t update it very often. I’m hoping this is just because he’s kinda new to the game and learning the ropes. Unlike his buddy Shaq who took to the program like he freakin’ invented it (when he was last in San Francisco he went looking for the Twitter offices to take them all out to lunch and asked for the address over Twitter). Seriously, Shaq is taking Twitter to a whole new level. Other athletes should be taking notes. Recently, Shaq twittered he was in a restaurant and invited anyone reading to go say hi. Well, some people did. Love it!

In other news, the WPS Pre-Season Schedules were announced. Training Camps open March 2.