For almost ten years now, whenever I’ve been involved in an activity that involves Twitter conversations I’ve headed over to TAGS and set up a copy to collate tweets and produce visualisations like the one above. So earlier this month, as I was tweeting to the #ETMooc2 hashtag, I was devastated to realise that it was now broken (I knew it was going to be, but I didn’t want to believe that it had happened). I’m too upset to explain the reasons why, and anyway Alan has already done that, I just wanted to say how sad I am that TAGS has gone. My PhD thesis about serendipitous learning was shaped by my ability to collect #CLMooc tweets easily and see what the community conversations looked like, my research into lurkers with Aras, AK and Len used TAGS and similar apps.
So a huge thanks to Martin for all the TAGS. It was great while it lasted.
The loss is huge, and sad, and closes the door for other kinds of research that people might do (as you did) to better understand the flow of online networking spaces over time. I always love the visuals created by Martin’s tool and how useful it was.
Kevin
It just feels devastating.
It is sad to see the damage being done to Twitter by it’s new owner. TAGS is just one example. I’m reading about how emergency warning services are no longer going to use the site because of the outlandish fees Twitter is asking them to pay.
While it looks like alternatives are being developed none will replace the 10-15 years many have invested in building their networks on Twitter, and in developing tools like TAGS to help us understand those networks.
Yup, and we always knew that it could happen, but it doesn’t make it any easier when it does.