Good News! Twitter search to focus on relevancy. Bad News… is it doesn’t matter.
The blogosphere has a fascination with rooting for the underdog. A wanting for the new kid on the block to take out the older, established, seasoned, and extremely profitable bully. The new kid we’re talking about here is Twitter and the bully is, obviously, Google.
Santosh Jayaram, Twitter VP of Operations, has ambitious plans to index web pages linked to from Tweets. This would add additional context and relevancy to Twitter search results. I love the idea and can see the value of such a move, but I’m growing wary of are those in those in “The Industry” suggesting Twitter will somehow leap the reigning champ. Before I get in to why Twitter will have a difficult time competing with Google, here’s a short list of recent “Google Killers”: MySpace, Facebook, Wikia Search, Cuil, Wolfram’s Alpha.
Okay, so why does Twitter have zero chance of defeating Google?
1. The current Twitter search engine doesn’t work well
If Yahoo or MSN told me they developed the secret sauce to beat Google at it’s own game, after laughing hysterically, I would be interested in what they had say because they, at a minimum, have fully functioning search engines. Twitter Search, in its current state, appears to be a basic full-text search engine that comes standard in most database servers. Twitter has a long road ahead!
2. No one needs Twitter
I have a Twitter account and I enjoy the service. It’s a fun service that has recently received very good publicity, but no one needs Twitter. We need to find directions. We need to find highly relevant information. Google has proven to be the best available solution for filling this need.
3. People don’t search they “Google it”
Old habits are hard to break. Yahoo has been able to retain a respectable share of search not because they deliver the best search results but because they’ve retained a loyal following from their days as the leading search engine. It will take some time before we associate Twitter with Search.
4. Twitter should set their sights on Facebook first
Facebook is far superior to Twitter in terms of execution and technology. Facebook Lexicon ( http://facebook.com/lexicon/new) provides sentiment analysis, trended keywords and topics, keyword associations, pulse, and geography information based on keywords in profiles and search behavior. It’s similar Google Insights for Search (http://google.com/insights/search/) but on steroids! Twitter will need to face, no pun intended, this battle before taking on Google.
5. Whatever Twitter can do Google can do better
Google currently has the ability to index social network content including Tweets. I don’t believe it will be very difficult for Google to bake Tweet relevancy, ranking, reputation, and authority into their algorithms. Additionally, Google has developed the most efficient advertising platform in the world. Combining the two equals a world of hurt for those competing in the search space.
6. Finally, see the image located at the top of this article.
Damon Henry
Comments
Connections
Being proponents and a leader in the digital space, I came to this site to hear what you have to say. And I have to say, it’s hard to tell if you’re a proponent at all. Look at your link posts…talk about doom and gloom
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Ah yes… thanks for pointing that out Travis. It’s actually a fault of mine for not updating the linkroll from Delicious in a while. What you are seeing is a pile of links that happened during a particularly rough week for social media?
YES TALK ABOUT DOOM AND GLOOM. I was particularly frustrated with it as well. But I promise that here at Threeminds, that is certainly not all our focus. We allow our employees to voice their opinion negative or positive on the space, and often have quite upbeat outlook on the industry… after all, if we thought it was falling apart, why would we enjoy working in it?
But thank you for the comment… because I really do need to update that linkpool!!
Twitter is useless to most people, unlike Facebook and Google.
I am not a user of Twitter but notice that it appears to have developed a large number of groups. One of its biggest advantages is that conversations are short.
As far as beating google is concerned it is unlikely to offer better searches. But now Google is also offering comments on its searches. It could well be that Twitter will be preferred for searches when you want a trustworthy referral.
But once (not if) Google acquires Facebook the whole picture will change in its favor.
These are probably the worst arguments I have ever heard. Really, “whatever twitter can do, google can do better”. Give me a break! That’s just like saying whatever Google can do Microsoft can do better in 1998.
Get some new writers!
ThreeMinds Weekly Digest 05.15.09
image credit: Kuw Son [Flickr] It looks like someone turned up the pressure on a little internet company known as GOOGLE this week. Almost every item in my box is about a competitor moving in on their turf and all the new launches Google has cooked up …