5 ms·

Twitter Ain't Search

24 points by trs90 18y ago

rubymaverick 18y ago
Has this guy heard of search.twitter.com?
- vyrotek 18y ago
  Is their search anything more than finding text in a tweet? They seem to be more about finding the most recent tweet containing your keyword. I would rather see the results weighted by retweets or something to help find 'relevant' tweets.
  - sjs382 18y ago
    Sure, it could do more. But it does what it does very well.
  - paulgb 18y ago
    It's essentially text search, but there is also a surprisingly useful near:[location] keyword that is good for local searches.
sjs382 18y ago
"I don't understand a concept, but I'm going to try to debunk it anyways."
- jwesley 18y ago
  Good assessment of this article. Although I do agree that Twitter search is being overhyped right now. Big time. It's basically the only thing left to hype so TechCrunch et al are milking it for all it's worth. Twitter search is useful as an opinion poll or for updates on breaking news, but only so much depth and value can fit into 140 characters. More than anything, I think Twitter thrives off vanity and narcissism. It's millions of people saying "look at me" and it's even easier to main and establish popularity than a blog.
  - sjs382 18y ago
    I was interested in a (very recent) event that Twitter offered the absolute BEST coverage for, all via search.twitter.com: the NHL trade deadline. Traditional news sources, blogs, TSN.ca, ESPN, Globe & Mail, etc all were slow on updates and commentary about prospective trades and evaluations of minor-league talent. I used search.twitter.com and searched for "#nhltrade" and "nhl" and had a constant stream of news and information. And by subscribing to the very best sources of news I could find there, I was notified of trades via SMS.* Sure, it isn't "search" the way most people think about it, but its the best search for a specific use case. * A side note: this allowed me to stay up to date while being slightly more productive at work. I wasn't constantly refreshing pages or listening to talk radio.
  - bobbyi 18y ago
    > only so much depth and value can fit into 140 characters If someone can't fit their whole message in 140 characters, they use a link to point you elsewhere (e.g., their blog). The worst case is that you have to click one link for each search results to see all of the content, which is the same as with google results.
AndrewWarner 18y ago
Next time there's breaking news in your neighborhood (like an earthquake) try your search on Google and on Search.Twitter.com and see which has the news faster. Twitter is instant. Google has to wait for someone to publish an article on the news and then Google needs to index that article. Plus with Google, the article's headline doesn't give you the whole story. It's a tease. You have to click over to read the story. On search.Twitter.com, you get the whole thing at once.
- buugs 18y ago
  I don't know about an earthquake, never felt one, but in all honesty I would rather read an article the 140 characters would be a tease as much specifics couldn't be given. If you think about it twitter would be good for traffic or something like that, but only if a radio station or some larger element was relaying the message. The same goes for a natural disaster, I'm not going to go look and see about a tornado or something along those lines on twitter, but a news company could relay it to me and this is about the biggest use I see of twitter search. In all honesty if I was searching for a subject it would be because I am aware of it and want to learn more, be it a disaster, story, or subject; twitter to me is exactly what it claims to be a way to update your status quickly and as much as you want.
  - sjs382 18y ago
    Thing is though, you aren't viewing 140 characters at a time. You're viewing a page of 20 of the most recent 140-character posts from a variety of people (all with differing perspectives) at the same time. It's not better or worse than a news outlet, it's just different. For my recent experience (a comment on this page): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504849 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504849
- sam_in_nyc 18y ago
  The timeliness of Twitter is definitely amazing. I think a lot of things will break via Twitter, and IIRC the emergency landing in the Hudson was one of these stories. It's the undisputed champ of quickly getting information "out there" ... provided you matter to enough people for it to begin to spread virally. It's definitely cool to see people's take on ultra-current events, and Twitter search can provide the Who, What, Where, When, and Why, but does not dig very deep into any of them. And because of the vast amounts of noise, it also requires you to know beforehand what you're looking for. What Twitter search is amazing at is eyewitness accounts in realtime for things you're actively seeking... but to me eyewitness accounts are only one aspect of the story, and usually I'm not seeking anything in particular. News has its place, and Twitter has its place, I don't see them intersecting over any other aspect than eyewitness accounts.
Flemlord 18y ago
Why can't Google index Twitter posts just like it does everything else?
- wallflower 18y ago
  Google does not have access to the XMPP firehouse (all tweets, the public timeline). More importantly, Twitter posts do not neatly fit into the page-rank concept (# of followers does not always equate to authority). Summize got around this problem by not even trying to address it - e.g. most recent tweets are first. Twitter is probably more easily gamed and adding Twitter results to their standard search would probably dilute average AdWords CPC. Of course, the flip side of this is Twitter tweets won't be monetized as efficiently as Google keyword-based ads.
njharman 18y ago
Twitter's real-time search can't be a Google killer cause unless I hadn't noticed Google doesn't have a real-time search product. The other way round is plausible, Google comes out with a Twitter killer. That is a real-time search product. But, why bother... Besides Twitter is more than just real-time search and Google is much more than just search.

24 points by trs90 18y ago

rubymaverick 18y ago

Has this guy heard of search.twitter.com?

vyrotek 18y ago
Is their search anything more than finding text in a tweet? They seem to be more about finding the most recent tweet containing your keyword. I would rather see the results weighted by retweets or something to help find 'relevant' tweets.
- sjs382 18y ago
  Sure, it could do more. But it does what it does very well.
- paulgb 18y ago
  It's essentially text search, but there is also a surprisingly useful near:[location] keyword that is good for local searches.

sjs382 18y ago

"I don't understand a concept, but I'm going to try to debunk it anyways."

jwesley 18y ago
Good assessment of this article. Although I do agree that Twitter search is being overhyped right now. Big time. It's basically the only thing left to hype so TechCrunch et al are milking it for all it's worth. Twitter search is useful as an opinion poll or for updates on breaking news, but only so much depth and value can fit into 140 characters. More than anything, I think Twitter thrives off vanity and narcissism. It's millions of people saying "look at me" and it's even easier to main and establish popularity than a blog.
- sjs382 18y ago
  I was interested in a (very recent) event that Twitter offered the absolute BEST coverage for, all via search.twitter.com: the NHL trade deadline. Traditional news sources, blogs, TSN.ca, ESPN, Globe & Mail, etc all were slow on updates and commentary about prospective trades and evaluations of minor-league talent. I used search.twitter.com and searched for "#nhltrade" and "nhl" and had a constant stream of news and information. And by subscribing to the very best sources of news I could find there, I was notified of trades via SMS.* Sure, it isn't "search" the way most people think about it, but its the best search for a specific use case. * A side note: this allowed me to stay up to date while being slightly more productive at work. I wasn't constantly refreshing pages or listening to talk radio.
- bobbyi 18y ago
  > only so much depth and value can fit into 140 characters If someone can't fit their whole message in 140 characters, they use a link to point you elsewhere (e.g., their blog). The worst case is that you have to click one link for each search results to see all of the content, which is the same as with google results.

AndrewWarner 18y ago

Next time there's breaking news in your neighborhood (like an earthquake) try your search on Google and on Search.Twitter.com and see which has the news faster. Twitter is instant. Google has to wait for someone to publish an article on the news and then Google needs to index that article. Plus with Google, the article's headline doesn't give you the whole story. It's a tease. You have to click over to read the story. On search.Twitter.com, you get the whole thing at once.

buugs 18y ago
I don't know about an earthquake, never felt one, but in all honesty I would rather read an article the 140 characters would be a tease as much specifics couldn't be given. If you think about it twitter would be good for traffic or something like that, but only if a radio station or some larger element was relaying the message. The same goes for a natural disaster, I'm not going to go look and see about a tornado or something along those lines on twitter, but a news company could relay it to me and this is about the biggest use I see of twitter search. In all honesty if I was searching for a subject it would be because I am aware of it and want to learn more, be it a disaster, story, or subject; twitter to me is exactly what it claims to be a way to update your status quickly and as much as you want.
- sjs382 18y ago
  Thing is though, you aren't viewing 140 characters at a time. You're viewing a page of 20 of the most recent 140-character posts from a variety of people (all with differing perspectives) at the same time. It's not better or worse than a news outlet, it's just different. For my recent experience (a comment on this page): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504849 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=504849
sam_in_nyc 18y ago
The timeliness of Twitter is definitely amazing. I think a lot of things will break via Twitter, and IIRC the emergency landing in the Hudson was one of these stories. It's the undisputed champ of quickly getting information "out there" ... provided you matter to enough people for it to begin to spread virally. It's definitely cool to see people's take on ultra-current events, and Twitter search can provide the Who, What, Where, When, and Why, but does not dig very deep into any of them. And because of the vast amounts of noise, it also requires you to know beforehand what you're looking for. What Twitter search is amazing at is eyewitness accounts in realtime for things you're actively seeking... but to me eyewitness accounts are only one aspect of the story, and usually I'm not seeking anything in particular. News has its place, and Twitter has its place, I don't see them intersecting over any other aspect than eyewitness accounts.

Flemlord 18y ago

Why can't Google index Twitter posts just like it does everything else?

wallflower 18y ago
Google does not have access to the XMPP firehouse (all tweets, the public timeline). More importantly, Twitter posts do not neatly fit into the page-rank concept (# of followers does not always equate to authority). Summize got around this problem by not even trying to address it - e.g. most recent tweets are first. Twitter is probably more easily gamed and adding Twitter results to their standard search would probably dilute average AdWords CPC. Of course, the flip side of this is Twitter tweets won't be monetized as efficiently as Google keyword-based ads.

njharman 18y ago

Twitter's real-time search can't be a Google killer cause unless I hadn't noticed Google doesn't have a real-time search product. The other way round is plausible, Google comes out with a Twitter killer. That is a real-time search product. But, why bother... Besides Twitter is more than just real-time search and Google is much more than just search.