URLs with a # sign as a directory name

[punisa]

Hello friends, one thing I'm not clear about - the use of "#" sign. I though that it was just a call for a named anchor, like "jump-to-certain-position".

But in what way is this page using it:
http://www.example.com/video/#/video/world/2009/10/30/video.example.name

The page plays a video news story with a few paragraphs of info. BUT the page has a very very high PR rank, I somehow think that by using this "#" sign it prevents the draining of PR from http://www.example.com/video/ to other /video/ pages. Well I may be completely off : D

Anways, I'd be happy if you someone could explain me the use of "#" sign in such situations.
Also, how does it play with SEO, especially Google?

I use it rarely, usually when I have a long article and I want to point user to a certain section.

[D_Blackwell]

Interesting question. Of course, best known as part of fragment identifier for linking to specific sections of a page.

If I create a directory #, put it anywhere on one of my sites, put a file in that directory (www.example.com/whatever/#/.ie7-rocks.html), I am automatically redirected to root index. Curious. Wonder what scripting or directives are involved?

[encyclo]

You see this when you are dealing with AJAX [webmasterworld.com] (asynchronous JavaScript + XML). The URL is handled via the client-side scripting and calls to the server.