With all of the sniping that has gone on recently between Google and that annoying little pest that keeps landing on its shoulder called Twitter wouldn’t it
Over at TwiTip they’ve done a nice job of talking about Twitter’s search capability and what it means to someone who is actually trying to use it versus talk about it. Not sure how you feel but lately the company to company sniping between Google, Facebook, Twitter and everyone else is a little tiresome. Until it actually affects how we use these tools (they are tools after all not some kind of magic potion) why not just work on making their products better and stop yammering but I digress.
Since many feel that the search feature of Twitter is the money maker for the ever expanding Internet darling it makes sense to see what they are up to. The author, Chris Allison, has this take as an overview after mentioning the hive mind that Twitter creates:
Google is a hive mind too, but their data is often collected as a side effect of user action, whereas the majority of Twitter’s “thoughts” are genuinely created and intentionally produced- carrying on
This distinction is important in establishing the place in the market that each of these information giants may hold moving into the future. Twitter is busy making their search function more robust. To cut to the chase and let you draw your own conclusions the two best options for you are to go the advanced search page. What caught my eye is the ability to look at tweets from a locality, time and sentiment point of view. I admittedly have not had the time to dive in and truly test drive these features so don’t be afraid to tell us about your experience.
In addition there is a search operator page that outlines everything you will need to know to search Twitter in its current incarnation. I suspect Twitter search will be a moving target for quite some time and one that merits very close attention moving forward.
So here’s some questions to ponder. Does this capability truly threaten Google? How will you use Twitter v. Google when searching for information? Beyond that, what about the rest of the real world of searchers that we as Internet marketers need to be thinking of? So many questions and I suspect so many Pilgrim opinions.
