The hashtag was first used online on August 23, 2007

 

The hashtag was first used online on August 23, 2007

Chris Messina first suggested using the hashtag to keep track of conversations on Twitter.

He approached Twitter with the concept at a bad time as they were preoccupied, and sadly the idea was forgotten.

So Messina started to use them regardless to see if he could start a trend.

Finally, Twitter caught on, and this is where the hashtag became what it is today.

Messina’s first-ever hashtag was #barcamp.

Twitter did not always have a hashtag feature. In its early days, users complained that it was a bit of a free for all and that they were seeing irrelevant content. Looking for a solution to this problem, Chris Messina took inspiration from IRC and unleashed the first Twitter hashtag on August 23, 2007. However, the hashtag wouldn’t take off until the 2007 California wildfires in October 2007.

While Twitter did not support the hashtag in 2007, Chris Messina saw an opportunity to get the hashtag noticed. California resident Nate Ritter happened to be prolifically tweeting about the wildfires. At the same time, Messina noticed that SanDiegoFire was being used as a tag on Flickr. This inspired Messina to reach out to Ritter and suggest the use of #SanDiegoFire on all relevant tweets.