FIRST Meme

[SavtaKenneth]

*disclaimer - all I know of twitter algorithm is one article's worth*

The Twitter trends algorithm works by comparing past to recent activity, that is to make it on the front page you'd have to generate more present activity compared to past activity on the tags. So I guess having a new tag has a higher chance of making it to the trends on the front page.

*end disclaimer*

I'll join in to whatever tag is decided upon ^^. Would love to see more mainstream interest in FIRST

[synth3tk]

#omgrobots, while it's pretty much the unofficial "official" FIRST hashtag, has been in use throughout the year. I think using a separate tag, even if it's #omgkickoff, would have a better chance of landing the Trending status, especially if it was never Trending anyway.

I also think we should make a concerted effort to retweet a tweet, and get as many FIRST members and supporters to retweet it as possible. TopTweets is a semi-automatic account from Twitter that retweets some of the most popular tweets happening at the current time. I'm not sure of the algorithm used to choose certain tweets, though, so there's a chance this may or may not work. But the exposure of the tweet to everyone's followers would at least be a positive.

[unionylibertad]

please use #omgrobots!!!!

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by unionylibertad

please use #omgrobots!!!!

It has less of a chance of trending, though. If we're trying to get this at least close to a trending topic, then we probably need a new tag. #omgRobots gets activity almost everyday.

[Jessica Boucher]

I'm not following - how would a new tag have better chance of trending than an older more used one? I'd love to read an article about it if you can point to it, please.

[SavtaKenneth]

This info on the trending algorithm was posted in the official twitter blog

http://blog.twitter.com/2010/12/to-t...-to-trend.html

It makes for an interesting read

[ATannahill]

Here is the important sentence.

Topics break into the Trends list when the volume of Tweets about that topic at a given moment dramatically increases.

[Tim Delles]

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

Here is the important sentence.

Topics break into the Trends list when the volume of Tweets about that topic at a given moment dramatically increases.

Basically... you would all have to tweet about that topic at the exact same time... ie. 9:01AM EST of Kickoff.

As for 'tricking' Google into making it something that appears on Google Instant... It's pretty unlikely considering the volume that they receive, and if you set up a bot to just have it search over and over, it's very likely Google will just start to ignore searches that you do as it pertains to Google Instant Rankings.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

Here is the important sentence.

Topics break into the Trends list when the volume of Tweets about that topic at a given moment dramatically increases.

Notice I kept using "less chance", not "no chance".

[dag0620]

Something else besides twitter/facebook.

If you live in the CT area you know about Channel 3 and Scott Haney. He's our morning weatherman and does a lot of announcements for community stuff etc. I'm planning on sending him an e-mail close to kick-off to get him to just send a good luck to all the teams etc. Another little thing to get FIRST our there, even with the non techy people.

[SavtaKenneth]

Can I propose the tag #omg20yearsforFRC ?
Would be a unique enough tag for it to break into trends if we can get enough of the community to use it.

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by SavtaKenneth

Can I propose the tag #omg20yearsforFRC ?
Would be a unique enough tag for it to break into trends if we can get enough of the community to use it.

I would like that hashtag...but I can't afford to waste 17 characters on it :/

[artdutra04]

Twitter search showed #omgfirst and #omgfrc have zero results.

#omgfrc would be a better option, since this will be for the FRC Kickoff event. Perhaps kickoff tweets can be tagged with both #omgrobots and #omgfrc for greater chance of being retweeted due to the semi-official status of #omgrobots.

[Zholl]

Originally Posted by Karibou

I would like that hashtag...but I can't afford to waste 17 characters on it :/

How about something shorter yet still in the same vein? Like maybe #omg20thfrc? That's only 11 characters long