Twubs Creates Hubs Around Hashtags

Twubs gives you the ability to see what is happening around specific Twitter hashtags. We talked about a similar service a while back called Tinker. Twubs sounds pretty simple, but I was pleasantly surprised when I actually went to investigate. Hashtags are a pretty important part of Twitter. There are no actual groups or threads built into Twitter, so it’s often hard to follow a conversation with someone, let alone a group of someones.

The Basics

Upon visiting Twubs, you’ll have the option to search for an existing hashtag, or pick from the Most Active, Most Active Review Twubs, and Top Categories. You can also sign in with your Twitter account information to access the editing features. Once you’ve clicked a Twub you like, you will see all the tweets related to that topic. If you’ve logged in, you’ll be able to post tweets right from the site with the option of including the relevant hashtag and a link back to the Twub.

The Goodies

When posting to the Twub, you can include photos, video, and links. Any media that has already been posted by other users is shown at the top. The layout of the individual Twubs is just like a Twitter profile. In the sidebar you have: a list of related Twubs, avatars for the Twubs followers/contributors, related tags, links, related feeds, and an embed code.

The part that really caught my eye was that all of this is pretty much automatic. If you’ve logged in, you can edit the room description and logo, tags, links, and feeds. Check out the Twub for #swineflu or #blck for a couple of examples.

Conclusions

Seems like a pretty neat idea. Tags can get confusing for me and I know I’m not alone. Being able to visualize the hashtag as a simple group with all tweets and media intact is definitely powerful. As Mashable points out, there is no way to claim a tag. Anyone can edit a Twub once they’ve logged in, so it’s possible that someone could deface a brand or otherwise just do malicious things. None of the real data from Twitter can be altered, so this isn’t that big of a deal.

What do you think about Twubs? What are you favorite hashtags?