I don't know if Scoble will beat me to the punch (he's blogging this too) but I got to say this: You don't need hashtags any more. The reason? Real-time search and filtering exists and works well in the places where hashtags are primarily used. If you don't get it, dwell on that for a bit. Once it sinks in, you'll know.

Robert Scoble just mentioned shortly ago that he "just realized hash tags are dead." And he's right! Hash tags have simply been a way to make it easier to find posts (on Twitter, among various services) that were related to some particular topic, for later look-up. But with the advent of real-time search on Twitter, FriendFeed, and various other services, is it really necessary to use hashtags any more? Just search for the term.

You might argue there's still some use to them on Twitter and other space-confined services. And you might be right, but that's only so long as those services are used and people can't figure out creative ways to ensuring that the context for hashtags fits in the message in an intelligible way. You don't need hashtags on FriendFeed, or on Blellow.

You don't even really need them on Twitter, either. In TweetDeck, I have search-based columns set up. Think I'm using hashtags in those searches? Think again. When I used hashtags for the searches, I was actually limiting myself to just those tweets using those hashtags. Drop the # and suddenly I was getting access to many more tweets, just as (or often more) useful than those using the tags.

Keep an eye on Scoble's blog for his ideas on the death of hashtags. Or check out that quote; it leads to a FriendFeed conversation with much discussion on the topic. And say goodbye to shift-3, you don't need it anymore.