Twitter and Search
February 18, 2009
I read Peter Hershberg’s “Does Twitter Represent the Future of Search? Or Is It the Other Way Around?” here. The article begins with a reference to search engine optimization guru Dan Sullivan and then races forward with this argument:
people are increasingly turning to Twitter — rather than Google and Yahoo — when looking for information on breaking news. This is a trend we highlighted in our 2009 predictions post at the end of last year. For proof of Twitter’s real-time search capabilities all you need to do is look back at last week’s plane crash in the Hudson to see where the news initially broke. People were talking about the event for several minutes on Twitter before the first mentions of it on Google News or any major media site, for that matter.
For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
My personal view is that Google and Yahoo haven’t come up with Twitter solutions simply because they did not initially understand what Twitter represents from a search perspective. Twitter themselves may have failed to grasp this initially, before Summize came into the mix. It’s unlikely that either Google or Yahoo saw Twitter’s potential as a search engine. So, it’s only now that they’re probably starting to put adequate resources behind developing a strategy in this area, though I have to believe that it’s become a very high priority, particularly for Google. That’s where this issue gets really interesting – particularly for someone like me who views social media through the lens of search.
The wrap up made a good point:
To this point, the “Twitterverse” has pretty much been living in a bubble – one where all updates are made and consumed within Twitter and its associated applications alone and where some believe that having 10,000 followers means that you are an authoritative or influential figure. While I believe that is, in fact, the case for some (and I won’t diminish the value in having a large following), the volume of traffic some individual Twitter updates will receive from organic search will dwarf what they are typically able to generate from Twitter alone. It also means that Twitter accounts with fewer followers – but with something important and to say on a given topic – will start to see some increased attention as well. Much like many of the early bloggers did. And when that happens, the whole question of influence and authority will once again be turned on its head.
As I thought about this good write up, I formulated several questions:
- Will Google’s play be to provide a dataspace in which Twitter comments and other social data are organized, indexed and made useful?
- In a Twitterspace, will new types of queries become essential; for example, provenance and confidence?
- Will Google, like Microsoft, be unable to react to the opportunity of real time search and spend time and money trying to catch up with a train that has left the station?
I have no answers. Twitter is making real time search an important tool for users who have no need for the dinosaur caves of archived data that Google continues to build.
Stephen Arnold, February 18, 2009
Comments
One Response to “Twitter and Search”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
[…] Twitter and Search (arnoldit.com) […]