How to follow the complete history of a hashtag in twitter
There are several folks who have created various hashtags for long term discussions on twitter that I follow (namely @davegray #kgames got me thinking about this). However, unlike participating in real-time discussions, I'd like to be able to check in from time to time, see what past participants have had to say over time, etc. The problem with this, as I discovered to my dismay while looking for an old reference in another hashtag, is that twitter only stores 30 days or so of this historical information.
A little trick to get around this problem is to have another service read and store this information for you elsewhere so that nothing will ever expire or be archived beyond your reach. If you follow a hashtag while using the twitter web interface you'll see that there is a link for a "RSS feed for this query" (could also be some generic search, not necessarily a hashtag).
You can then provide this link to any RSS feed reader client you like and voila, you have your own archive of everything that ever takes place within that particular hashtag. In my case I use either Google Reader or Outlook 2007 depending upon the value and posting volume of a particular hashtag. Unless you are already using an existing RSS client that you like, I'd probably recommend you use Google Reader since it's easy, doesn't require you to download anything, is accessible from any computer, and is platform independent. http://google.com/reader
With most Windows based web browsers you can right-click on this link, copy it, and then paste it into the "subscription" field of whatever RSS reader you use. The equivalent exists on all other browser platforms. For Google Reader simply click on the "Add a subscription" button and paste the link there.
If you can't figure this out just leave me a comment regarding what platform, browser, and RSS reader you use and I'll walk you through it. Why I had never noticed that RSS feed link before I have no idea, but if I missed it I assume others have to so hopefully this will help someone.
Cheers,
Matt Ridings - @techguerilla
[update: just found this link which covers this same topic and adds some additional information as well. it's more complete than my post above so you might want to check it out]
