As millions gather in Washington, D.C. today — and around TVs worldwide — to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama, Twitter will be buzzing with updates, observations, and discussions about the event. Much of this will be flagged with the hashtag #inaug09.
Today in Almighty Link, Kevin Sablan (Orange County Register Web task force team leader) listed three Twitter tools helpful for following, and contributing to, the action on this hashtag. He wrote:
- Tweet Grid “has a 2009 Inauguration Live Tweets page where you can watch three streams of inauguration tweets. You can post a tweet from the page, and the #inaug09 hashtag will automatically be added to your message.”
- Tweetchat “will also add a hashtag to your tweets before posting. Tweetchat treats hashtags as ‘rooms.’ Go to the inaug09 room (hashtag is optional on this site) to join the conversation.”
- Twibble Mobile lets you create “templates” to store strings of text, like #inaug09, that you can quickly insert while tweeting from your mobile device.” (Available for Java-enabled smartphones including Nokia, Blackberry, and SonyEricsson — but not for the iPhone.)
Sablan’s post also includes a rundown of how the #inaug09 hashtag emerged.
Tidbits contributor Barbara Iverson also covered some useful Twitter tools today.
Note that Twitter will be experiencing peak load today, and thus might have occasional outages and other weirdness. These will affect not just the Twitter site, but all other sites and tools that depend on Twitter. So expect a bumpy — but interesting — online ride today.
