Here’s a weird story for you. Say you’re an innovator, a UX designer for Google+, you sit on the boards of various Web Foundations and often spend your time retooling web browser experiences for giants such as Mozilla. You’d think people would talk about some of the brilliant things you’re inventing, right?

Well, not really. Meet Chris Messina, which boasts the abovementioned resume and is a global celebrity not thanks to his inventions, but because of a pretty stupid idea (his words, not ours):

“I spent a lot of time working on technologies that I’d hoped would unify the social web and give people more choice – and instead of any of those efforts taking off, this stupid, stupid idea I had ending up being the thing that caught fire. Go figure.”

The #Hashtag

That stupid idea began in 2007, when Chris tweeted this:

Today, that pound sign / hash symbol used before a word, better known as the hashtag, is everywhere. You can see it in TV ads, hip-hop videos, bars and billboards. Politicians use it to try and get people to #vote and Lil Wayne uses it to get more followers on his weird Gucci-inspired Twitter alias #liltunechi.

Everyday, more and more apps introduce support for the hashtag, trying to emulate the giants who are already on board: Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr,Instagram, Path, Twitter. Seeing the obvious trend (with a delay I might add) and not wanting to be seen as the odd one out, Facebook took to its Newsroom and announced hashtag support for its users.

What’s Facebook’s @point, #Skipper?

The idea, as they present it, is simple:"help people more easily discover what others are saying about a specific topic and participate in public conversations.”

So FB’s hashtags are basically tags used to categorize conversations between users. Facebook also graciously offered these 3 usage tips for the hashtag:

• Search for a specific hashtag from your search bar.
• Click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram.
• Compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results.

It would seem then that this update comes from the Menlo Park-based firm’s plan to engage users in more conversations. Now, as ever, that’s not the full story. Facebook has two potentially giant benefits from introducing the # API. They are SEO and monetization.

They Care About #traffic

From an SEO standpoint, there’s a lot to gain. Imagine how much traffic Facebook could be getting from Google, via all those nifty #-tagged words. Take the word “#facebook”, which according to Google’s Keyword Tool receives 3,760,000,000 hits which are [Exact] matches. Imagine how frustrating it is for Zuckerberg to see this link as the top result for that keyword.

Now, multiply that with all the giant brand names out there who are promoting themselves offline (TV, radio, banners) via hashtags, and you’ll get the picture. There’s a world’s worth of an army out there Googling various hashtags.

They Also Care About #cash

After traffic, there’s big monetization potential, which Facebook is keenly aware of:

“The recent "Red Wedding" episode of Game of Thrones, received over 1.5 million mentions on Facebook, representing a significant portion of the 5.2 million people who watched the show. And this year’s Oscars buzz reached an all-time high on Facebook with over 66.5 million interactions, including likes, comments, and posts. To date, there has not been a simple way to see the larger view of what’s happening or what people are talking about.” – [Source]

Knowing that Facebook is, slowly but surely, deviating from its original goal of connecting people and joining the ranks of the increasingly money-hungry Internet giants, it’s easy to imagine how they’d sell trending hashtags or create some sort of a paid advertising via the pound sign. In fact, they’re already pushing advertisers to use them.

Why Should You #care?

Say you have a Facebook Page promoting your local business. Theoretically, the more pound signs you use when #talkingaboutwhoeverknowswhat, the more eyeballs you’d potentially get, thanks to people clicking and searching that hashtag.

Obviously, you’d want to use only relevant, trending ones. This process would eventually lead to more ‘real pounds’ in your company’s bank account, due to increased visibility; theoretically, at least. In practice, the actual hashtag search results order will probably be decided by a number of factors, including ‘virality’, fan base, brand, posts reach, etc.

Open For Misuse

It’s hard to imagine the little guy leveraging the new hashtag for more business on the long term. But I would imagine, at least now, when the idea is pretty new, that some lucky unethical bastards might use hashtags to piggyback important events and drive traffic to their pages.

This begs the question: Will Facebook manage to keep their hashtag search results relevant and spam-free? The answer will decide whether its users will use it on a big scale or just as a waltz step between various social media platforms.

You Should #care About Using It Right!

In the end, you shouldn’t really mind Facebook’s #hiddenagenda. If you’re a decent user, you only need to #care about a few rules when using Chris Messina’s invention:

1. Keep It Relevant

Like stated before, piggybacking on trending hashtags just for traffic’s sake is a no-no. You’ll eventually ruin your reputation, receive bad comments and might even be sent to Internet jail in a “do not pass GO, do not collect $100 dollars” manner. So use hashtags only when relevant to your post.

(Image source: digitalsherpa)

2. Keep It Simple

Less is more. If you want to start a cool hashtag for people to use, go for one or two words or an abbreviation. Say you want to promote your favorite cartoon character, Ren and Stimpy’s Powdered Toast Man. You might not want to go for #PowderedToastManRenStimpy. A way better option would be something like #PTMChar.

3. Keep It Obvious

A lot of folks simply skip searching existing tags before coming up with their own hashtags. As such, they just write the hashtag they expect others to be using. You want those people to also be part of your conversation.

Keeping your hashtags based on your brand, product or show’s name is usually your best bet. Also, check to see that the hashtags won’t end up hurting your PR efforts #susanalbumparty-style than helping.

4. Don’t Spam

Using too many hashtags in a single update or comment might leave you wondering why nobody loves you. That’s because you’ll be seen as a spammer. Studies show that, at least on Twitter, tweets with one or two hashtags receive double attention, while tweets with more than 2 hashtags receive 17% less engagement.

(Image source: blog.sourcemetrics.com)

There’s no reason to think that Facebook works differently.

5. Define Your Hashtag

When first posting a tag for a conversation, it’s good practice to define it. Let people know what the hashtag is about. Describe it in simple words. You can also define it here if you want to be thorough.

Conclusion

Hashtags are a great invention. We should be happy that Chris Messina came up with this insanely awesome and “stupid” idea. Facebook might be late in jumping in on the train, and they might be doing it for the wrong reasons, but that shouldn’t keep you from caring about your image and using hashtags correctly.

We all have read advice by our career heroes on how they achieved the massive fame fortune, and adoration that catapulted them to legendary status. And who hasn’t daydreamed about following in our heroes’ footsteps, doing just what they did to capture a small piece of our own career glory?

There’s certainly nothing wrong with doing that, but I do have some unfortunate statistics for you (that’s me – fun like the algebra teacher).

But when it comes right down to it, what worked for the most successful people in your professional field won’t necessarily work for you. In fact, there’s an overwhelming likelihood that it won’t. Even if you do manage to become the next Steve Jobs or Paul Rand, the way in which you achieve your success will likely look nothing like the road they each took.

Recommended Reading: Failure Is Feedback: How 5 Billionaires Had To Fail To Succeed

When following pre-traveled paths, it’s important to consider your own individual circumstances. Your needs, goals and available resources are unique to you, and doing things because someone else did them may actually hold you back from achieving whatever it is you were meant to achieve.

Eat The Meat; Leave The Bones

Here’s something to try the next time you read an inspirational or instructive book or blog post. Read it through and take notes on things that resonate with you – if something doesn’t resonate, ignore it. It’s important to pick and choose what’s relevant for you specifically and leave the rest on the table. Be ruthless in ignoring whatever doesn’t fit your particular situation. Yes, even if it’s this very article.

You shouldn’t let anyone’s opinion get in the way of attempting something you want to attempt. The only way to find out if something will work for you is by trying it.

You Know Yourself Best

It can be discouraging when someone you admire gives a piece of advice that’s completely contrary to what you believe to be the right path for you. You may feel as though you must follow that advice, because Famous So-And-So says it’s the only way, but that’s garbage.

In our age of limitless access to infinite information, it’s possible to piece together your own road map for success that’s tailor-made for you and contains no bony bits. After all, even our heroes say weird, irrelevant things from time to time. They’re only human, after all.

Read, Read, Read

As a writer, I might be overstating the importance of reading constantly. Just kidding. That’s impossible. Reading is vital to your growth in any field, but in creative ones in particular. Next to travel and first hand experience, reading is the best way for you to learn about the world and draw inspiration from it.

Read For Ideas

In fact, the way in which we convert words into images can have a completely different effect on our brains than actually looking at something can. This is why reading makes you smarter than watching television.

You’re still receiving information either way, but only reading engages your imagination and visualization skills, which in turn makes your brain work harder, which in turn makes it generate more neural connections and new ideas.

You may find that, after reading enough, you can create your own path for success that has nothing to do with whatever it was your heroes did before you. Then, you can write your own book and share your wisdom with others.

The Opposite Of Your Inspiration

Want to get the most out of reading? Here’s the secret: you have to read everything. That’s right – anything you can get your hands on, even if it seems irrelevant to what you want to know. Read lots of new books and blogs; don’t just keep recycling your favorites.

If you only read things you like and agree with, you will become entrenched in a very narrow way of thinking about success, creativity, and life in general.

Challenge Your Reading List

Read things you wouldn’t normally read, and even things that you’re pretty sure you’re going to hate. Sometimes you can learn the most from the people with whom you most strongly disagree. I’ve gotten loads of inspiration from books and blog posts I’ve read that seemed on the surface to be a giant waste of my time to slog through. But if you gain even a shred of a usable idea, it was worth it.

Why? Because you’re not simply reading for fun, you’re reading to plan out your own professional road map.

Learning For Science

As a designer, you should not be consuming information strictly for pleasure, but also for research. Don’t just read a book, or look at a design or digest a blog comment and then move on without taking notes, making sketches and putting your brain to use in coming up with extrapolations and further developments of idea fragments.

When stitched together, those fragments can create a whole that will shock you with its originality and freshness. I like to keep a notebook nearby at all times when I’m browsing the internet or curled up with a new book. I never know when inspiration may strike from something I’m reading or looking at, and I want to make sure I don’t let any intriguing ideas slip away.

That’s not to say I’ll actually use each idea that comes into my head, but it’s important to get them down on paper to sift through and find the gold nuggets.

In Conclusion

By arming yourself with a wide variety of knowledge, you can bend the ‘rules’ handed out by others to your own expectations, and never get stuck following advice that’s guaranteed to doom any real success you might have.

Remember that your individual results not just may, but will vary – often widely – and don’t take every single opinion of a respected industry leader at face value. Challenge it, put it to the test, and see if it really sounds as it looks on the surface.

Variables finally come to CSS. Yes, the CSS that we use everyday for styling webpages. We have disccused several times on using variables with CSS Pre-processors in our previos posts. Today, we are going see how to use it in regular CSS.

Declaring Variables

The variable in CSS is specified with the var-* prefix, like so.

 var-primary-color: #333; 

In the above code example, we created a CSS variable named primary-color. However, unlike in CSS Pre-processor, where we can declare variables independently, the variable in CSS should be nested under a CSS selector.

Here is an example:

 html { var-primary-color: #333; } 

Additionally, when it comes to naming the variable, it is advised to follow the language naming convention.

In the case of CSS, it uses dash to separate the words in the property name. In JavaScript, the uppercase is used for the start of each new word e.g. variableNamesLikeThis.

Passing Variables

Now, the question is how do we apply the variable in CSS rules? We can apply the variable with the new CSS var() method. Let’s say we want to apply the primary color in the body, we can write it in this way:

 html { var-primary-color: #333; } body { background-color: var(primary-color); } 

It is worth noting that Chrome is the only browser that is currently experimenting this feature, and the -webkit- prefix is required for us to see the result. So, at the moment, here is how we actually should write the CSS rules.

 html { -webkit-var-primary-color: #333; } body { background-color: -webkit-var(primary-color); } 

Scope

If you a JavaScript coder, you should already be familiar with the Scope concept. Similarly, it also applies to CSS variable. The value will be applied only to the elements where it is nested. Given our previous example, we can apply to all the elements as we declared it under the utmost element, html.

Let’s say we nest it under a div, like so

 div { -webkit-var-primary-color: #333; } 

Certainly, that variable can only be applied in <div>.

Further Resource

• CSS Custom Properties for Cascading Variables Module Level 1 — W3C

Conclusion

Without a doubt, Variable would be a great addition to CSS. However, at the moment, this only works in Chrome. So, until W3C has given Recommended status for this module, using CSS-Preprocessor is the only viable option of using variable in CSS.

You can go to the demo page. If your browser supports it, you should be able to see the effect.

• View Demo
• Download Source