I’ve been away lately. Physically away from home, yes, but also virtually away from Facebook, Twitter, and the blogosphere. It’s probably good to take a break from the virtual world from time to time, if only to remember that there is also a physical world out there that is equally full of interesting people, challenging opportunities, funny stories, and compelling news. Funny, that…

Anyway, as much as I have been enjoying disconnecting over the past few weeks, there have been moments when I’ve wanted to dip into the social networks to see what’s been going on. Facebook is easy to catch up with – I just go to my favorite fan pages and keep clicking back until I’ve seen all their posts. The news may be a bit stale (a week is an eternity in Facebook terms), but at least I can see what people have been sharing.

Twitter is a different matter. There’s just no way to make up for a week’s worth of lost news. This is mostly because of the sheer volume of tweets sent, but also because if you click back far enough, you will reach the dreaded “earlier tweets are not available” notification.

So what do I do to catch up on Twitter? First, I check the current feed (who knows, I might be lucky and be tuning in just as a big story is breaking). Then, I visit the feeds of my favorite tweeters to see what they’ve been sharing. After that – and here I arrive at my point for today’s post – I head straight for the #1nt hashtag, where there are always a few good interpreting-related stories to be found.

However, I would love for there to be even more such tagged tweets on interpreting. Hence my plea: if you are an active Twitter user and interpreter, please add the #1nt hashtag to your tweets when you share interpreting-related stories. Let us emulate the translation and localization Twittersphere, who are so good at using the #xl8, #t9n and #l10n hashtags on their tweets. The news junkies in all of us would better enjoy our virtual downtime this summer if we knew that all the top interpreting news is only an #1nt search away.

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