Google and YouTube.com Real Time Search
October 17, 2009
On an exhausting slog through two European nerve centers, I emerged to learn that Google has tiptoed into real time search. The story that alerted me was “YouTube Launches Real-Time Discussion Search and Tracking”, which I read after a meal at McDo in Paris. The nugget in the write up was:
Real-time information is red hot all around the web but it made a surprise appearance on YouTube tonight in the form of real-time search for comments, of all things.
I took a quick look at made a mental note that Google’s engineers have tackled real time content of a specific type on the YouTube.com servers. Although big, the test bed is relatively narrow in Google’s scale of the world. The content provides a useful test for Google because many YouTube.com comments, in my opinion, are similar to the stuff that turns up on slang choked public message systems.
Is this an end game for Google and real time search? In my opinion, this is a beta test. My hunch is that there is more to come from the Google. This begs the question, “Is Google late to the real time search party?” My view is, “No.” A number of firms have useful real time search systems. I write a column each month for Information World Review, and I try to document some of the more interesting systems and their research use cases.
Compared to Google, most of these systems operate at a non Google scale. Google’s notion of scale means that the company must tackle engineering problems that some firms may not have to tackle. As a result, Google will take baby steps in real time search. When the toddler starts taking tween sized steps, Google will put pressure on some of today’s winners.
Therefore, Google is moving at an appropriate speed which gives today’s leaders in real time search to find ways to out innovate Google. Google’s baby steps in real time search helps ensure continued innovation. Good news.
Stephen Arnold, October 16, 2009
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
