If you’re like me, you’re just getting used to the difference between the @ and the # on Twitter. Now they’ve introduced another tag – the $. Put one of these puppies next to a stock symbol and you’ve got a live, clickable link. TechCrunch explains:
Instead of the ubiquitous “#”, the addition of the symbol “$” added in front of any ticker will instantly provide context for that stock, aggregating all tweets that use the ticker under one label. Twitter gives the example of “$GE” — General Electric’s ticker symbol — although this will obviously work for any company, like Apple ($AAPL) or Google ($GOOG), allowing users to peruse conversations happening around those stocks in realtime.
But not everyone is pleased about the new Cashtag.
Newser asked the question, Why hasn’t anyone thought of that yet?
Well, someone did. StockTwits, a microblogging site for investors, has been using the dollar sign tag for years, and its co-founder isn’t happy. “It’s interesting that Twitter has hijacked our creation,” he wrote on his blog. “It only took four years to ‘fill’ this hole, though a few months back they told me in a detailed email it was not a hole they wanted to fill.”
Dirty Twitter!
What do you think of the new Cashtag? Will you use it?
Does this seem like the intellectual property of StockTwits?
Image of dollar sign courtesy of Shutterstock