Twitter: For the Poor, the Downtrodden

March 4, 2009

If this post is accurate, Twitter is “the poor” person’s email. I read this and thought of the Statue of Liberty. Not sure why. Twitter may be like the arrival from another land who showed up, worked hard, and defined a category of search; specifically, real time search. The story “Google CEO: Twitter A ‘Poor Man’s Email System’ by Dan Frommer strikes me as accurate an eerily authentic. For me the key segment of the article was:

I think the innovation is great. In Google’s case, we have a very successful instant messaging product, and that’s what most people end up using.

If Mr. Frommer had not labeled this as a statement attribute to chief Googler Eric Schmidt, I would have hooked the statement to a Microsoft executive. Several comments:

I don’t use Twitter but I use http://search.twitter.com. It is useful and it beats Google to the news punch on certain topics by minutes and many times by hours.
The demographic of Twitter users strikes me as similar to what Google’s user base was prior to the consumerization of search after the Google IPO. In short, Twitter has to be viewed as an important service, and it is an important service attracting high profile people who talk about the Twitter service.
The assumption that Twitter users will switch to Google’s system is possible, but I think Twitter has some decent legs. Is Twitter perfect? Nope. Is it important? Yep.

Google is starting to sound like Microsoft. Google, like IBM and Microsoft before it, is showing that it has lost its ability to think and act with the agility it possessed just a few short years ago. Just my opinion.

Stephen Arnold, March 4, 2009

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, Google, Mobile, News, Online (general), Real time search

Comments

2 Responses to “Twitter: For the Poor, the Downtrodden”

sperky undernet on March 4th, 2009 8:47 am

Jaiku looks like a Windows Live production. I guess this is not a priority item but it should be shelved until it looks like what we used to expect to see from the original Googley One.
Twitter Wisdom and its Impact on Decision Making | family life on March 5th, 2009 9:47 pm

[…] Twitter: For the Poor, the Downtrodden (arnoldit.com) […]

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.