Twitter is rolling out a new feature that allows users to search companies by stock symbols that have a dollar sign in front of them. Called “cashtags,” users can click on the stock symbols to take you to a twitter search.
The only problem at this moment, as Charlie Osborne points out in this article on ZDnet, is that there’s no search result differentiation between the $cashtag and the #hashtag.
“…the new feature does not show any expanded information — such as current stock prices — but it is not hard to imagine that they could eventually do so,” Osborne wrote in her post.
But how will cashtags play out? Will the cashtag become more valuable for marketers, or those on the mergers and acquisitions side?
Though, in theory, the use of a cashtag could help raise visibility for a publicly-traded merchant’s marketing campaigns. But on Day 1 it appears that Twitter users are using the cashtag solely to talk about financials and stock quotes (see example on Storify).
Though Twitter made the cashtag a tool for searching today, the dollar sign in front of a ticker symbol is not a new sighting. In fact, CNET reports that StockTwits co-founder Howard Lindzon is accusing Twitter of hijacking the cashtag from his company.
“In a dirty way, it’s the ultimate compliment so we will take it as such for the moment and keep rolling out functionality that makes us the best real-time communication platform for people that love stocks and markets,” Linzdon posted on his blog.