We’ve been cranking away at new features and style updates pretty much since the day we released WTHv3. Let’s get right into what you’ll see in the next release of What the Hashtag.

Note: The screenshots you see below probably won’t completely reflect the final design.

OAuth Integration

One of the biggest features we wanted to implement was OAuth so you could tweet directly from WTHashtag quickly, easily and – most importantly – securely. Following the footsteps of other popular Twitter interfaces, we’ve allowed you to connect up to three Twitter accounts to your WTH account. There’s also a method for shortening URLs using bit.ly, is.gd, or idek.net.

Transcript Exports

People are raving about our ability to export transcripts for a hashtag over a given timeframe. An easy to read, printable document outlining all the uses of a hashtag is a fantastic resource, especially for chat tags.

We’ve added another output option to the mix, and that’s a PDF. It looks and feels the same way (for the most part) as it’s brother the HTML version but is packaged up so you can save a single file to your computer.

Article Page Facelift

We’ve slightly redesigned the page for hashtags to make it a bit more contemporary (”Web 2.0-ey”). For starters, we’re giving away even more statistics for a hashtag. If you click the more stats link under the Top Contributors section you’ll find useful info such as tweets per day, % of tweets that come from the top 10, % of tweets that are retweets/mentions, and % of tweets that have multiple hashtags. This is on top of the infamous Top 10 that seems to embarass most people who see their name on the list.

Categories

In the very first implementation of WTH we built out a section called See Also, which was later renamed to Related Hashtags. This section is meant to contain links to other hashtags that are directly related to each other (e.g., #iranelection and #cnnfail). Unless you know what you’re looking for, you won’t know where to start browsing.

This is where our new categorization system becomes useful. You have the option of adding hashtags to one or more categories; you can also browse categories and see what pages fit there. For example, check out our MLB category with links to all 30 teams’ hashtags or our Chats category with a pretty good list of Twitter-based community chats.

We feel it’s important to note that the Related Hashtags section is for directly related tags, while the categories section is for more loosely related groupings. A great example is BarCamps – they’re not directly related but they should probably be in the same category. This makes it much easier for everyone to discover content.

Most Active Hashtags

If you want to know what tags are most used, just visit our homepage where you’ll find that box in the right column. If you want more than just the last hour, click one of the timeframe links to see which hashtags are the most popular over the last 12, 24, 72, and 168 hours.

TweetShrink

Since we’ve added the 140 character description box there have been plenty of times when it didn’t feel like enough. A budding new-ish service called TweetShrink steps in here and helps us help you fit that description into 140 characters. Once you break the 140 character limit, but button will be enabled and you can ask it for assistance. Don’t get too greedy – TweetShrink has a habit of cutting your text in half when it doesn’t know what else to do.

The Full Monty

OK, maybe not the full monty, but here’s a snapshot of the new and improved homepage.

Take notice of the new icons underneath the hashtags in the left column. The group of people signifies a community-created entry which means one of the registered users created that page. As our way of saying thanks, we denote these hashtags and give you some credit in the hover text for the image. The miniature graph image you see means the hashtag started out as a trend and our bot picked up on it.

The hashtags that are currently trending are listed at the top for easy access. To edit a description, click the shaded green box and a text box will shift up and you can enter your definition. The redesign makes more use of AJAX than previous versions did.

So, did we miss anything? If you know of something we could implement that isn’t depicted above, leave a comment and tell us what it is.

Earlier this evening we pushed out the third iteration of our site’s interface. We’ve been up and running on a makeshift install of MediaWiki for some time now, but this latest version aims to take us to the next level.

A More Actionable Front Page

Starting with the newly designed front page, the actions a user can take are clearly outlined. We’ve got a newly improved search bar, the latest trending hashtags and a list of recently added hashtags.

Related to the recently added hashtags, users now have the ability to contribute short descriptions on the front page with a single click of the mouse (and no account required).

Improved Layouts on Hashtag Pages

The pages for individual hashtags have also gone through a major redesign. We scaled back a bit on the number of fields we create by default, but also worked to rearrange the content on the page into a format that is easier to decipher.

Statistics, Statistics, Statistics

We’ve been tracking the number of times a hashtag is being used for awhile, as well tracking the top contributors, but now we also call out the number of uses made by each contributor, and the total number of tweets and unique contributors for a week’s worth of usage.

Run Transcripts for Hashtag Usage

This new feature is sure to be popular with those who participate in hashtag chats. With the new transcript option, you can get a printout of all tweets with a specific hashtag for any date range.

In the past users would often resort to combing through Twitter Search and copying/pasting results or saving TweetChat pages as HTML files if they wanted to see what had been discussed during a Twitter chat. Now users just navigate to the hashtag they are interested in, click the transcript button and type in the dates they are looking for. We will generate a single page file with all of the tweets, in order, and supply it in an easy to save or print format.

Watch and Participate from a Hashtag Page

The Monitter widget has been very helpful for us in displaying the latest tweets about a hashtag, but now we’ve expanded that Twitter stream by allowing users to submit their own tweets directly from the page.

Click the participate link and a box will pop open allowing you to craft your message. You will be greeted by a message box with the familiar character counter and your hashtag already inserted. Just include your username and password and we submit everything to Twitter directly through their API.

Please Submit your Feedback

Now that the new design and new features have been launched, we want to hear from you. This started as a project that the three of us thought would be interesting, but each day we are discovering more users who are also finding it to be of value.

So, what can we do to improve the hashtag experience? What would make the site easier to use? Please submit your suggestions/requests in the comments here, or feel free to @reply us on Twitter (@wthashtag).