6 ms·

Twitter Says People and Publishers Will Suffer From Google's Social Search

28 points by bproper 15y ago

soumyadeb 15y ago
This would force twitter and others to open up their APIs to google and other search engines. Google and twitter had the deal before - not sure who pulled the plug when it expired in 2011. Overall, this is probably good for openness of internet, IMHO,
kylemaxwell 15y ago
Maybe I'm missing something. Twitter no longer provides Google a firehose feed, though I'm unsure where the breakdown originated. But Google does index Twitter and includes results from it. Google+ results get a higher ranking, and that's the issue, right? From somebody outside the social media echo chamber (i.e. a user, not a maven), this seems like a tempest in a teapot. I'd welcome some elaboration.
- soumyadeb 15y ago
  If you are logged into google, google knows who you are. It will produce results from your Google+ network even if that information is not public. It can't do that for twitter. It doesn't know your twitter ID, nor does it have access to your twitter network. It can crawl all the twitter pages just as it crawls the rest of the web but that may not be as relevant as the search results from your network (and hence rightly may be ranked lower). If twitter wants to appear alongside your Google+ results, they would have to open up their twitter social graph to google (or any other search engine) so that google knows who you are and can produce results accordingly. As a user I think this is good. I don't like the idea of my data being held hostage by sites.
  - wmf 15y ago
    You can link Twitter to Google under "other profiles" in G+. They could also use OAuth to get your friends.
  - groks 15y ago
    Google knows who you are on Twitter if you tell it: https://plus.google.com/connectedaccounts https://plus.google.com/connectedaccounts And because Twitter is largely public, Google knows who you follow and will show tweets and links in serps. Has done for some time now. You can tell Google who you are on github, but I haven't noticed any interesting search results. You right about password protected content though. You can tell Google who you are on Facebook but it can't crawl most of the data.
    - soumyadeb 15y ago
      Great. People have all the more reason to link the accounts now. I just did.
- yanw 15y ago
  Twitter pulled the plug on Google's firehose access which led Google to shutter Realtime search: http://searchengineland.com/google-realtime-search-the-aftermath-of-the-google-twitter-split-84794 http://searchengineland.com/google-realtime-search-the-after... It is a tempest in a teapot.
oldstrangers 15y ago
One of the bigger worries is that it's stuff like this that might eventually force the government's hand in creating internet legislation. The issues are becoming incredibly complex, and its clear these companies aren't just going to regulate themselves. Of course, no clear answer exists, and Washington's 2nd grade understanding of technology certainly won't get us anywhere. I could almost see some kind of collaborative UN style internet body come into existence in the next 20 or 30 years. It would almost have to given our increasingly wired lifestyles. It just feels like we're in the golden age of internet freedom and things can only get worse. I imagine our grand kids looking back on our time in shock at what we (comparatively) got away with.
- awj 15y ago
  Yeah, we do that now with other areas (radio transmission, fascination with X-Rays, almost every known application of chemistry, etc), but it's weird to think of it happening in our daily lives. What are we doing now that people will look back on us and say "look at what naive fools we used to be"?
- theoj 15y ago
  This brought back memories of the browser wars. Back then it was "Should Microsoft be allowed to use its control of the desktop to bundle Internet Explorer with Windows?" Now it's "Should Google be allowed to use its control of search to bundle Google+ data with search results?"
  - yanw 15y ago
    No it doesn't, it's not bundling if both products are free and it's not bundling when you don't actually own any of them. There are important nuances between the two cases that some people choose to overlook.
    - theoj 15y ago
      >> it's not bundling when you don't actually own any of them In legal terms you don't own Windows either - MS gives you a license to use it.
akg 15y ago
Google has a right to promote it's own products and it has no obligation to Twitter or Facebook or anyone else. People will use the product to the extent to which it serves their purpose. I guess if Google does proceed to neglect data from Twitter, Facebook and other mediums it might be a new opportunity in search. Who said search is a solve problem. In fact, I think the guys at Greplin are working on this very problem: https://www.greplin.com/ https://www.greplin.com/
yanw 15y ago
They don't really get to have a say in this. Google doesn't dictate to Twitter how they should conduct their business and Twitter would do well to follow their lead. If I recall correctly Twitter refused to renew Google's firehose access and forced them to shutter Realtime search: http://searchengineland.com/google-realtime-search-the-aftermath-of-the-google-twitter-split-84794 http://searchengineland.com/google-realtime-search-the-after...
- zerostar07 15y ago
  Twitter is not an effective monopoly though. With great power comes great antitrust regulation.
  - yanw 15y ago
    Are you a lawyer? as I understand it a court would have to declare a monopoly and in this case none has. Purely from a commonsense point of view however there is no such thing as a monopoly on information retrieval.
    - zerostar07 15y ago
      Me not being a lawyer doesn't make google less suspect for monopolistic practices. The US senate has been investigating it[1] and and new concerns are raised now[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/google-faces-antitrust-glare-on-capitol-hill/2011/09/20/gIQAFUuKjK_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/google-faces-... http://betanews.com/2012/01/10/googles-new-personalized-search-raises-antitrust-concerns/ http://betanews.com/2012/01/10/googles-new-personalized-sear... In any case, the one who should be worried is facebook, not twitter. It's also interesting to note how google is going at greater lengths to promote G+ than it did with any of its products before.
      - yanw 15y ago
        There are always bought politicians parroting some special interest, that doesn't mean that they have a clue: http://searchengineland.com/dear-congress-its-not-ok-not-to-know-how-search-engines-work-either-105265 http://searchengineland.com/dear-congress-its-not-ok-not-to-... And what about innocent until proven guilty?
benologist 15y ago
Pretty flakey reason ... by the time someone is googling a topic the news has already broken. I can't recall or even imagine any context where a tweet is going to be the best result for something I'm searching for. What could they be relevant results for?
Calamitous 15y ago
"Burger King says People and Chefs Will Suffer From McDonald's Big Mac"
- tsunamifury 15y ago
  That just makes me agree more.
EGreg 15y ago
LOL, if Twitter's argument is that "time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter", then I don't se how this applies to crawled results, only their realtime feed. And since they don't have that deal with Google anymore, those results that "break first" are irrelevant to their point.

28 points by bproper 15y ago

This would force twitter and others to open up their APIs to google and other search engines. Google and twitter had the deal before - not sure who pulled the plug when it expired in 2011. Overall, this is probably good for openness of internet, IMHO,

kylemaxwell 15y ago

Maybe I'm missing something. Twitter no longer provides Google a firehose feed, though I'm unsure where the breakdown originated. But Google does index Twitter and includes results from it. Google+ results get a higher ranking, and that's the issue, right? From somebody outside the social media echo chamber (i.e. a user, not a maven), this seems like a tempest in a teapot. I'd welcome some elaboration.

soumyadeb 15y ago
If you are logged into google, google knows who you are. It will produce results from your Google+ network even if that information is not public. It can't do that for twitter. It doesn't know your twitter ID, nor does it have access to your twitter network. It can crawl all the twitter pages just as it crawls the rest of the web but that may not be as relevant as the search results from your network (and hence rightly may be ranked lower). If twitter wants to appear alongside your Google+ results, they would have to open up their twitter social graph to google (or any other search engine) so that google knows who you are and can produce results accordingly. As a user I think this is good. I don't like the idea of my data being held hostage by sites.
- wmf 15y ago
  You can link Twitter to Google under "other profiles" in G+. They could also use OAuth to get your friends.
- groks 15y ago
  Google knows who you are on Twitter if you tell it: https://plus.google.com/connectedaccounts https://plus.google.com/connectedaccounts And because Twitter is largely public, Google knows who you follow and will show tweets and links in serps. Has done for some time now. You can tell Google who you are on github, but I haven't noticed any interesting search results. You right about password protected content though. You can tell Google who you are on Facebook but it can't crawl most of the data.
  - soumyadeb 15y ago
    Great. People have all the more reason to link the accounts now. I just did.
yanw 15y ago
Twitter pulled the plug on Google's firehose access which led Google to shutter Realtime search: http://searchengineland.com/google-realtime-search-the-aftermath-of-the-google-twitter-split-84794 http://searchengineland.com/google-realtime-search-the-after... It is a tempest in a teapot.

oldstrangers 15y ago

One of the bigger worries is that it's stuff like this that might eventually force the government's hand in creating internet legislation. The issues are becoming incredibly complex, and its clear these companies aren't just going to regulate themselves. Of course, no clear answer exists, and Washington's 2nd grade understanding of technology certainly won't get us anywhere. I could almost see some kind of collaborative UN style internet body come into existence in the next 20 or 30 years. It would almost have to given our increasingly wired lifestyles. It just feels like we're in the golden age of internet freedom and things can only get worse. I imagine our grand kids looking back on our time in shock at what we (comparatively) got away with.

awj 15y ago
Yeah, we do that now with other areas (radio transmission, fascination with X-Rays, almost every known application of chemistry, etc), but it's weird to think of it happening in our daily lives. What are we doing now that people will look back on us and say "look at what naive fools we used to be"?
theoj 15y ago
This brought back memories of the browser wars. Back then it was "Should Microsoft be allowed to use its control of the desktop to bundle Internet Explorer with Windows?" Now it's "Should Google be allowed to use its control of search to bundle Google+ data with search results?"
- yanw 15y ago
  No it doesn't, it's not bundling if both products are free and it's not bundling when you don't actually own any of them. There are important nuances between the two cases that some people choose to overlook.
  - theoj 15y ago
    >> it's not bundling when you don't actually own any of them In legal terms you don't own Windows either - MS gives you a license to use it.

akg 15y ago

Google has a right to promote it's own products and it has no obligation to Twitter or Facebook or anyone else. People will use the product to the extent to which it serves their purpose. I guess if Google does proceed to neglect data from Twitter, Facebook and other mediums it might be a new opportunity in search. Who said search is a solve problem. In fact, I think the guys at Greplin are working on this very problem: https://www.greplin.com/ https://www.greplin.com/

yanw 15y ago

They don't really get to have a say in this. Google doesn't dictate to Twitter how they should conduct their business and Twitter would do well to follow their lead. If I recall correctly Twitter refused to renew Google's firehose access and forced them to shutter Realtime search: http://searchengineland.com/google-realtime-search-the-aftermath-of-the-google-twitter-split-84794 http://searchengineland.com/google-realtime-search-the-after...

zerostar07 15y ago
Twitter is not an effective monopoly though. With great power comes great antitrust regulation.
- yanw 15y ago
  Are you a lawyer? as I understand it a court would have to declare a monopoly and in this case none has. Purely from a commonsense point of view however there is no such thing as a monopoly on information retrieval.
  - zerostar07 15y ago
    Me not being a lawyer doesn't make google less suspect for monopolistic practices. The US senate has been investigating it[1] and and new concerns are raised now[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/google-faces-antitrust-glare-on-capitol-hill/2011/09/20/gIQAFUuKjK_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/google-faces-... http://betanews.com/2012/01/10/googles-new-personalized-search-raises-antitrust-concerns/ http://betanews.com/2012/01/10/googles-new-personalized-sear... In any case, the one who should be worried is facebook, not twitter. It's also interesting to note how google is going at greater lengths to promote G+ than it did with any of its products before.
    - yanw 15y ago
      There are always bought politicians parroting some special interest, that doesn't mean that they have a clue: http://searchengineland.com/dear-congress-its-not-ok-not-to-know-how-search-engines-work-either-105265 http://searchengineland.com/dear-congress-its-not-ok-not-to-... And what about innocent until proven guilty?

benologist 15y ago

Pretty flakey reason ... by the time someone is googling a topic the news has already broken. I can't recall or even imagine any context where a tweet is going to be the best result for something I'm searching for. What could they be relevant results for?

Calamitous 15y ago

"Burger King says People and Chefs Will Suffer From McDonald's Big Mac"

tsunamifury 15y ago
That just makes me agree more.

EGreg 15y ago

LOL, if Twitter's argument is that "time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter", then I don't se how this applies to crawled results, only their realtime feed. And since they don't have that deal with Google anymore, those results that "break first" are irrelevant to their point.