As you might have heard, Twitter launched their own photo sharing service in August, which is hosted by Photobucket. Since then Twitter has obvious seen a huge rise in their photo sharing service and the third party Twitter photo clients that were dominating the market are starting to die.
Market share of all the major third party Twitter photo sharing services have dropped, Twitpic, Yfrog and more. It simply now seems that these services are finding it very hard to diversify and innovate within the space. These services really need to change their model or core service or they are going to fade into obscurity very quickly.
Most people know how to use Twitter search by now. You use their unique algorithm to find both profiles based on common interests or locations, or via live feed updates that are being posted as we speak. This has made it a great way to find specific information, especially for following and keeping up to date on certain topics.
When it comes to Twitter, you might not think you can use their search to save money, much less become more environmentally conscious. But you would be wrong; it is easy to use their hashtag system to do just that. That is because it doesn’t just link you with specific groups or businesses. Instead, you find updates that are always changing that use the same topic for interest.
You might be wondering what that means for you. Basically, you will be able to find anyone who might be talking about saving money or living a more sustainable life in that moment. Anyone talking about it anywhere could have a good tip or a link that could benefit you, and you will have the power to see whatever is more recent any time you look.
Now, these ten hashtags can be used to save a little cash while create a more self sufficient, sustainable and eco-conscious lifestyle. All with a simple search and follow.
5 For Saving Money
#savings – This hashtag will give you a ton of options for deals which are linked from both personal and company profiles. However, sometimes they can be a little hard to navigate because they use locations to specify the deal. For example, you can find savings in Boston, or in Atlanta. You might want to narrow it down a bit to find what you are looking for.
#frugality – If you are looking for tips on how to save money in your day to day life, you will get a lot of them here. #frugality is a hashtag used by people all over the web to tell about how they managed to save a few dollars, or links to specials they have come across. But mostly, there are ideas such as biking, using phones during certain hours or places to buy items more cheaply second hand.
#deals – This are almost exclusively online deals from companies or websites that are third party for the stores. They provide small explanations of those promotions, with a link out. AmazonDeals commonly uses this hashtag, as does SheSpeaksDeals and others.
#bargains – I have noticed a lot of freebies posted under this Twitter hashtag, which is a plus. Otherwise, it is just a way of expressing excitement for personal account users on getting deals, which can give you a nudge in the right direction. There are also some savings sites that use it to talk about clearance or sales items on online shops.
#coupons – Everyone loves coupons, right? This hashtag will point you to coupons from all over the web, as well as for in-store deals you can print. Sometimes they just send you to linked sales pages from local shops, which shows specials currently being offered. This becomes a much more active hashtag between the months of October – December, especially with Black Friday right around the corner, and predictions popping up everywhere.
5 For A Sustainable Life
#sustainability – Saving resources is an important part of protecting our world. Especially in a time where the natural items given from the Earth are so often exploited, with increasingly dire consequences. #sustainability is all about eliminating waste through better methods of extraction, policies and using what is already available to us before going for something new.
#slowfood – You know all about “fast food” and the problems that come along with it. Now, there is a focus on “slow food”, or that which is gained, made and traded in a more positive way. This assists in both the planet, the people and local economies, and can be equated to fair trade on a very basic level. This hashtag has tweets all about that process, and how you can get involved.
#sustainable – Rather than used alone, this hashtag is usually combined with others that give it context, such as #greenliving, #corporateresponsibility and others. It is similar to the #sustainability hashtag, in that it informs and promotes on the process of more replenishing and responsibly using resource, as well as finding better ways to do things.
#susty – This is a more obscure tag that uses an abbreviation to speak about sustainability. It is usually put in posts by individual users rather than foundations or companies. It is also almost always partnered with other hashtags to generate context and make it easier to share with others.
#sustainableagriculture – Sustainable agriculture is not a new concept, but it is one that it just developing mainstream followers and interest. It is a means or producing and transporting food that is positive for the environment, as well as for the people who consume it. This usually include organic farms, but also anything that is part of a program to deplete hunger on both local and global scales, through distribution. You will also find posts dedicated to proper animal treatment in the agricultural process, as well.
Conclusion
It is interesting how sustainability and money saving go hand in hand. When you make a real effort to reduce the use of resources, you will be reusing or limiting the use of a number of products. This means cash saved for you as your spending goes down, and a positive feeling of helping yourself and others out.
Twitter has made it simpler than ever to share in this process and learn how to do it more effectively. If you are a tweeter, but hashtags do you use toward this purpose? Let us know in the comments, as well as how it has been helping you to change your life.
Annie is a frugal writer for Life Insurance Finder, a money-saving resource based in Australia.
Design Deck has released brand new awesome Twitter follow button and icons for everyone to use. In the set there are 16 layered PSD follow buttons with 8 white and 8 blue.
In very strange news it seems like Jack Dorsey is firing key players at Twitter. Dorsey is back in as the head of product at Twitter and he seems to be remove the original team that are closely affiliated with Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Jason Goldman. Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Jason Goldman left Twitter in the past few months to stat their own incubator project.
I dont understand why Dorsey is removing all these people when they have grown Twitter up from his idea. It seems like Dorsey has fallen out with Stone, Williams and Goldman and is trying to get the company to start fresh.
Im a huge believer that Twitter was only successful because of Williams and Stone!
Here is a great Microsoft Excel 2010 addon for Twitter analytics. Analytics for Twitter creates an amazing template for twitter users to see their basic twitter statistics.
As you can see from the template users will be able to see tweets, frequencies, search queries and a lot more.
Perform up to 5 parallel Twitter Searches (limited to 1500 results per query per day).
Drive ad-hoc analysis of tweets by day, by hour, by tweeters, by #hashtags and @mentions.
Customize your views (using slicers, DAX formulas or reference tables).
Apple has just launched iOS 5, which will be released in the fall. Within the iOS 5 launch they ran through Twitter and how it will look on the iOS 5 update.
Here is a quick preview of what Twitter will look like on iOS 5.
Twitter has finally introduced their own Follow button. The Follow button is very simple, it lets users create their of button so that anyone can one click and follow them on Twitter. This feature is going to be a great addition to all those Twitter directories out there.
Previously, Twitter has been directing people to their Twitter pages with the hope that they would follow after visiting. However, these conversion rates have been very poor and this button is much more effective.
There has been a lot of talk here in the UK about super injunctions, where they allow celebrities to block their names from being released in the press. Recently, a super injunction was taken out by a celebrity to only have all the reports being leaked on Twitter instead of in the press. This has cause a huge uproar so Dan Bull has dropped a song to commemorate the moment.
It seems like Twitter are now experimenting with their own text ads. Text advertising has show up on Twitter just below the “trends” section of the site. Those text ads have been there for a long time, but previously they have only been promoting Twitter applications and other Twitter services, but now it has changed!
In this screenshot it was advertising the upcoming NFL draft, which included the website URL and there’s a related hashtag to help you see related tweets on Twitter search.
It seems like UberMedia is entering a fight with the dragon and they are going to take on Twitter head-on in the microblogging space. Recently UberMedia has been acquired a lot of Twitter and microblogging applications, with the overall aim of creating their own microblogging platform. UberMedia now sends over 10 percent of Twitter’s daily activity. While both services have been co-operating to better both of their financial situations, UberMedia thinks it would make more sense to try vertically integrate a new microblogging platform into their already very popular services.
At the start of 2010, UberMedia was accused by Twitter of violating some of its terms of service and a results was suspended. Twitter was basically upset that UberMedia called one of their products UberTwitter, thus they changed the name of the product to UberSocial. However, ties between the companies havent geen on good terms since. Thus, UberMedia will be creating their own microblogging service and a Twitter competitor. It will be very interesting to see if the product gains anywhere near as much traction as Twitter.
