This morning there was yet more publicity on the popular short text service “Twitter” if you don’t yet know what Twitter is, where have you been this past year?! This service seems to be taking the world by storm and has plenty more potential up its sleeve; however the reviews in the magazine “Shortlist” (a free London publication given out at tube stations) seemed to be less than optimistic with Twitter and its potential for success focusing more on its gimmicky side.
The reviews in Shortlist were written by Tech columnist at the Guardian, Paul Carr and Brent Hoberman founder of lastminute.com. Guardian doesn’t have a twitter account, which is strange to me as most of the main newspapers do? And lastminute.com is more like “lastdecade.com”, that said they had some interesting reports on the twitter business model and came to the conclusion where will it go now? And how will Twitter make money?
My current feeling is that with the idea of integrating Twitter into some form of search platform will establish the future within internet search. Real time search supported by a form of solid indexed search will be the next steps in my opinion.
Twitter is a search engine (the test).
I integrated the current twitter search results within my Google browser though a Greasemonkey script in Firefox. (I’ll explain how in a later video blog). The link and post on how to do this is available at mt-hacks.com
The results of this test have been incredible. It reminds me of the 1st time I used Google many moons ago before the trillions of spammy pages were indexed and when AskJeeves.com ruled UK search.
Over the three days I’ve been using the add on, each and every search I have ran so far on a specific niche has returned the best results in Twitter not Google. This in my opinion beats any of the “static” Google results pages in terms of both content and relevance.
My Twitter Search example
I realised how powerful this actually is when I wanted to step up my twittering. My Facebook account was linked to my twitter account, so each time I updated my status on Twitter, all of my Facebook friends were getting annoyed notified though a Facebook update.
Being Coolest Geek on the Net 
I really wanted to tweet about topics and issues that I knew would drive some of my “normal” Facebook friends crazy so I wanted some way of filtering what tweets update my Facebook updates.
I ran a long tail search in Google in the hope something might come up. This is my normal course of action when running a “niche” search. I then see what results are returned and retarget my search relative to the results.
My search was
“Separate my Facebook and twitter status update but keep them linked”
As you can see, long tail, the Google results were vague and uninteresting, not specific to what I wanted but sure enough the Twitter results were a totally different story!
Twitter showed me results on was what other people were looking for at that moment in time and after just one search I found the application “Selective Twitter Status” from the top twitter result.
This is not to say I’d not have found this program elsewhere with a bit of in depth searching but the point it, I didn’t need to! Twitter returned the results I wanted over anything Google had to offer! Twitter was my search engine!
The Twitter searching went on throughout the week and each time I’ve found more interesting and relevant results in Twitter search.
Twitter Search Engine Outcome
This is not to write off Google! Even though Eric Schmidt referred Twitter to a “poor mans email system” but I think everyone is overlooking (or playing down) the potential.
This really does highlight the forward path for search and I have to disagree with the writers of the Shortlist column. To think linearly about what this technology has to offer not the way forward it’s not simply that people will have to receive ads though Twitter. This is a very old advertising thought process.
Why not allow “the people” to build the content of the search engine and then monetize the search engine results pages just like Google do? Twitter Real Time Search Engine – This in my opinion for the future of Twitter.
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9 Comments to “Twitter in Shortlist Magazine – Twitter the Search Engine”
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Jamie Klingler says:
I’m the photo director at ShortList, but these are my opinions, so I’m not speaking on behalf of the whole team here.
Good points made. The major purpose of the article was to ask the questions rather than to just attack the people that have been using twitter currently. I’ve read tons of articles about whether Twitter was just full of narcissists and from journos who had tried to be on it for a month with no followers and without following anyone and then said it didn’t work.
As an avid twitterer, I’m glad we did the article and went to someone who religiously uses the site (@paulcarr) obviously we only had three pages but there is the danger that all of us who have used it up until the tipping point will move to the next vehicle (ala friendster to myspace to facebook to twitter).
@photogirluk
Ollie says:
Very true, and thanks for the reply, it’s a valid point and also worth pointing out that this (shortlist) is going out to the masses, and not just computer geeks like me, but I felt the need to highlight that there is more to twitter than meets the eye
Thanks for the comment, interesting discussion! 
laurence says:
Great point. Although, I would argue your intention when you did this search query, you were looking for something specific to get fixed ….But what about people who don’t know what they’re looking for? Browsing the web? Searching for a good deal like ‘cheap second hand red trousers’ or ‘mobile phone cheap price’? Google still deliver better and faster results.
Twitter is as good as what people are talking about. My concern is if people are more into celebrity than science (which is probably the case..) then Twitter will display so many conversation about the 1rst topic and none on the 2nd one…
However, its so nice to see some serious competition in the search engines world @ last!
Follow me @lozbzh
Ollie says:
Yea good point, although currently it is more of a niche geeky spread of people. Although if there was a separate alternative search to Google with a database of everyone’s tweets across the world whether they are writing about “oh I found this new gadget” or simply “check out this new red dress I just found on Shopzilla (with a link)”
Then I think the scope for this is more promising than Google for marketing purposes. It just needs everyones participation, and it seems to be getting there. Real time direct marketing.
Then all twitter need is a Search Engine Results page like Google, monetise the Sponsored Links and then there you have it. A strong, if not better alternative to Google.
(I want a cut for this idea Mr Twitter)
Wio says:
Twitter Search is a fascinating tool. I agree with Laurence: nobody is talking about cheap red trousers (I checked
) but you get to see what thousands of people all over the world ARE talking about – it makes Google’s Zeitgeist look somewhat dated!
nice one Olly!
laurence says:
buy shares :p
Ollie says:
Thanks Wio! I think this will potentially be the way forward, let Twitter collect all the people and eventually they will be taking about anything and everything. It will become big, although it could go many ways… I suppose… watch this space. p.s Hope you’re well!
laurence says:
Forgot to say, great blog ! I love the design & cool features you have integrated into the page. Well done
Ollie says:
Thanks Laurence, the blog needs some good tweaks, but I just had to post this on the net as I was just watching all these people talk about twitter but miss a point! So wanted to air mine