"Hashtags" are a simple way to make things you are writing (or photographing, or video-ing) more findable on the web. There's no science to hashtags, they are simply keywords that one adds to a blog post or Twitter tweet (or photo, etc.) to make it more findable later.

Here is a quick primer on hashtags from Amy Gahran. (And the patron of all all this organic tagging stuff, which is often called a "folksonomy," is Thomas Vander Wal, who you should be following if you're not.)

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What was so interesting is that nine of the top ten searches currently trending on http://search.twitter.com are for hashtags, instead of "natural" words. In fact, the only "natural" search right now is for "iPhone."

So What?

No big rocket science here, but an interesting bit for sure. Individuals are starting to organically "tag" the things they are creating on the web so that others can find it. And, apparently, people are starting to search on these tags in greater numbers, at least according to the trend that we're seeing right now.

If you are representing an organization...are you tagging things so that your customers can find them?

If you are running a conference...do you have an "agreed upon" hashtag that all who are chronicling it are using, so that those in the room (and on the web) can find all of the great things that are being created there?

If you are an individual...are you tagging your support issues with vendors that you are publicly documenting (you are doing that, right?) with tags so that vendors can find YOU, instead of you going to them?