Twitter Friday: Twitter Search Craze
This week Twitter search was the number one topic in the Twittersphere.
Mainly for 3 reasons:
- Twitter began to roll out or rather pop out search integration for some accounts
- A GreaseMonkey Script adds Twitter search to your Google results
- Some people perceive a threat for Google in Twitter search
Let’s take a look. I haven’t seen this new search functionality on my account. I don’t need it though. Using the PowerTwitter extension I already have an enhanced Twitter search on my Twitter page.
The GreaseMonkey script that adds “real time” Twitter search results above your regular Google results is a good idea but after using it for a week I can only say: The results are only sometimes useful. I checked them often and clicked quite a few to get disappointed in many cases.
Is Twitter the “new Google killer”? Well, I can only exclaim “LOL”. Sorry for this childish sounding reaction but it’s the only one that fits. It’s like saying that bikes are a threat for the car manufacturers.
Is the future of Twitter all search? Even this claim is largely an exaggeration. Staying down to earth the new Twitter search development just mean:
Twitter is going to add an overdue feature to its tool that is considered standard elsewhere.
Microblogging and Twitter are no threat for Google whatsoever, they are a useful addition at best, a distraction in the worst case.
Twitter is great for a lot of things especially for business be it branding, social networking, spreading the word or even direct sales. There is no reason to think that Twitter will soon replace Google, Windows or Firefox though. The only thing it can replace to some extent is full fledged blogging. Microblogging is just easier and faster so that information spreads quicker on Twitter. Now is the time to add Twitter to your blog to combine the advantages of both.
March 14th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
[...] Twitter Friday: Twitter Search Craze | SEOptimise Twitter Goes Crazy on Fridays [...]
March 16th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Yes agree that the current obsession with defining twitter as the new is amusing. Google has nailed the search market and there is no way twitter will compete directly. However, twitter can offer a facet of search that Google can’t and that is brand conversation monitoring at an individual level. Yes I’m sure if you paged through hundreds of results on Google you could find forum traffic but that is not viable. Twitter can help you get to the heart of your community and understand who is saying what, when, enabling you to respond. So let’s lose the comparison fetish and embrace different tools for different reasons. Good blog post, interesting reading as always.
Thanks
james
twitter.com/einbusiness_JG
March 17th, 2009 at 4:09 am
Twitter is slowly making it up but I doubt it’s ripe enough to level with the broadness of Google.
March 17th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Google will not allow Twitter to take over in search, I agree. But I don’t think that full-fledge blogging is either under serios threat, as microblogging has its charm, of course, for people who just interested in facts and value their time.
However, Twitter is also open to misuse, as when lots of people start using to promote their brands and products/services, it may eventually acquire reputation of marketing-hype or (even worse) spammy source of info.
March 17th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Twitter is my newest obsession in the world of micro-blogging. I think that twitter is going to fade out rather quickly though, as something new will come along. Oh well, lets make the best of it while we can…
March 18th, 2009 at 6:50 am
I am finding the Twitter/Google search GreaseMonkey script very useful in my line of work – but it’s less obtrusive if it’s placed to the side of the search results rather than directly above them.
You can find details of how to change the script to do this here: http://mt-hacks.com/20090302-realtime-twitter-search-results-on-google.html#comment-324511
I’d really recommend this script if you’re regularly Googling your company’s name, researching news stories etc..