Behind the Firewall

Twitter memes are the tweets being posted right now that are tagged for particular topics. The "right now" part is important. This is the real-time flow of ideas spontaneously emerging through multiple, dispersed Twitterers on any given topic. They can move quickly, like a fresh water stream.

In addition to following other Twitterers, you can follow memes, or topics. In the right hand side bar of your Twitter home page is a search box. Type in a topic, prepending a hash (#) symbol. That will display all the tweets tagged for that topic.

Example: #windpower

This will give you what anyone anywhere on Twitter is saying right now about wind power (provided they've included the #windpower tag in their tweet).

If this is something you'll want to check on a recurring basis, you can save the search and a "#windpower" link will appear in your sidebar for future use.

Your home page side bar also displays "Trending Topics" which are the currently most active memes. You can see more by logging into www.twitscoop.com with your Twitter login. (The same live feed of trending topics is also available from Twitscoop on your desktop TweetDeck application.)

I've been trying to find a comprehensive index of Twitter memes but haven't yet -- please let me know if you do.