#measure is the new #wa in Twitter

UPDATE: John Lovett from Forrester Research, or @JohnLovett as I like to think of him, has weighted in on the use of #measure and appears to be on board. He also documented how quickly things change in our increasingly hectic world and how fast a “standard” can become yesterday’s news.

Just a quick post to help bring attention to the fact that the fine people of Washington state have officially over-run the #wa hashtag that many web analytics folks have been using in Twitter. While this certainly our loss given how terse #wa is when you’re limited to 140 characters it is difficult to fault those folks since WA is their state’s abbreviation.

Such is life in an unregulated world, huh?

As a replacement I have started using #measure when tagging my web analytics-related Tweets. And while there was some debate about #measure versus #waamo and #analytics and the such I would propose that #measure is the basis for everything we do. Without measurement there is no analysis; without measurement there is only gut feel.

That said I am choosing to use the #measure tag … you may choose to use something completely different. But since I was one of the catalysts to start using #wa in the first place I figured I would see if lightning might strike twice!

See you in the #measure cloud!

Posted Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 | 7 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

Dustin Wallace

Just thought I’d give some self-recognition. I was the first to bring this issue up on Twitter a few days ago. Thanks to everyone for jumping on board with this and making it happen.

Eric – I’m lovin Digitaria!

@DustinWallace

Jason Egan

I am on board, I just wonder how long it will be before some other organization or group of people will start using #measure eventually.

I use TweetDeck to group folks as I need anyway, so I can have a column that still has a search for #wa and/or #measure, and my manual columns for people.

eric

Dustin: ;-)

Jason: Well, since it would have been pretty hard to actually defend #WA given it’s colloquial usage that battle was lost before it began. #measure is something we can collectively defend (if we decided to do that.) Let’s hope that doesn’t happen!

Having issues with event tracking in Google Analytics? Read on… | Intersections

[...] And for those who use Twitter, #wa is being deprecated in favor of #measure. See Web Analytics Demystified for an explanation. [...]

Ray Province

#measure was a great idea. It really fits more of what I am trying to do with web analytics, and social media analytics. Appreciate you writing the article. Have added my name to the rising tide!

Jan Alden Cornish

Migrating from #wa to #measure is a specific example of an established community of people self-organizing around using a new hashtag. Any other case studies?

The Most Meaningful Insights Will Not Come from Web Analytics Alone | Gilligan on Data by Tim Wilson

[...] started a thread to kick around alternatives, and the community settled on #measure, which Eric documented on his blog. I like the change for two reasons (notwithstanding those five precious characters that were lost [...]

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