The #Hashtag is officially 10-years-old today

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA/WTNH) — The hashtag turns 10-years-old today!

No longer just known as a “number” or “pound” sign, the hashtag is a keyword leading with that symbol that groups together similar messages within a topic. Technically, it’s known as an “octothorpe”, according to a blog post by the co-founder of Twitter, Biz Stone.

Political and social movements have been placed into the spotlight because of hashtags, great causes have been shared and businesses have used hashtags in their marketing campaigns worldwide.

This feature is used across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more to discover and sort content. These keywords are hyperlinked and brought to pages of results with similar content. Think of it as typing a word into Google and seeing results.

In 2007, Chris Messina, an avid Twitter user, came up with the original hashtag idea stemming from IRC and T-9. IRC is Internet Relay Chat that enabled messaging via group chat rooms and the “number symbol” was already incorporated here. T-9 was a predictive word generator used in early text messages which made typing easier to do. He pitched the idea directly to Twitter and since then, it’s become a staple of the social network.

Here’s the first tweet using a hashtag:

Over 125 million hashtags are used a day by Twitter’s 328 million users! Today, the anniversary is marked with a special hashtag: #Hashtag10.WHAT’S TRENDING ONLINE NOW –