Discovering hashtag trails with cross-platform hashtag search engines: a state-of-art analysis

Abstract

Although the hashtag convention was originally initiated by Twitter, it has become a common functionality across multiple social media platforms. As hashtags have become universal and linked across multiple social media platforms, the issue involves how users can search hashtags beyond the boundary of individual social media platform. This study aims to investigate the industry trends in hashtag search engines using a morphological analysis and particularly focuses on those engines supporting hashtag searching across platforms instead of on single platform (i.e., Twitter). As a preliminary result, this study found that the innovation of hashtags has added value to the social media universe and transcended borders of social media. Additionally, this study found that new hashtag functionalities have been developed to address user information needs; hashtags can be interconnected through the emerging hashtag search engines; and the hashtag trails may be profiled to gain more insights into the stories behind the hashtags.