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Learning From Twitter, Facebook Implements Active Hashtags

By Melony Roy

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Facebook is adding Twitter-style hashtags, giving its users the ability to follow conversations.

Hashtags are nothing new in the social sphere, and you may have even used them on Facebook. But until now they had no functionality.

In a blog post, Facebook has announced that users will now be able to include a hashtagged phrase (such as #thingsihatemost or #USOpen) in their posts and watch it become clickable.

Facebook says its hashtag functionality will be similar to that on other services such as Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest.   When a hashtag is included in a post, clicking on it will pop out a feed that aggregates posts from others that have been tagged with the same phrase.

Users will be able to search for hashtags, click on hashtags that come from other services, and write posts directly from the hashtag feed.

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