<P> According to Messina, he suggested use of the hashtag to make it easy for "lay" users to search for content and find specific relevant updates; they were for people who do not have the technological knowledge to navigate the site . Therefore, the hashtag "was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages ." Today they are for anyone, either with or without technical knowledge, to easily impose enough annotation to be useful without needing a more formal system or adhering to many technical details . </P> <P> Internationally, the hashtag became a practice of writing style for Twitter posts during the 2009--2010 Iranian election protests; Twitter users inside and outside Iran used both English - and Persian - language hashtags in communications during the events . </P> <P> The first published use of the term "hash tag" was in a blog post by Stowe Boyd, "Hash Tags = Twitter Groupings," on August 26, 2007, according to lexicographer Ben Zimmer, chair of the American Dialect Society's New Words Committee . </P> <P> Beginning July 2, 2009, Twitter began to hyperlink all hashtags in tweets to Twitter search results for the hashtagged word (and for the standard spelling of commonly misspelled words). In 2010, Twitter introduced "Trending Topics" on the Twitter front page, displaying hashtags that are rapidly becoming popular . Twitter has an algorithm to tackle attempts to spam the trending list and ensure that hashtags trend naturally . </P>

When did the pound sign turn into a hashtag