The integration of social elements into search engines has been a significant development. Bing has collaborated with Facebook to integrate Facebook search results, while Google has refined its algorithms to enhance local and social search relevance. However, both major search engines appear to lack in certain critical aspects. Neither has yet achieved the perfect balance between dynamic social results and traditional search engine results pages (SERPs). Additionally, identifying a suitable social platform for implementing recommendation systems or algorithmic adjustments remains a challenge. Despite substantial investments in social search by the industry leaders, a third-party has developed a superior social search engine without attempting to compete. Twitter, primarily a platform for sharing information within social networks, has inadvertently created a robust search engine.
Similar to other effective social search engines, Twitter indexes real-time information (tweets) from diverse sources, including firsthand accounts, experts, and even random users. Users can access a broad range of perspectives and opinions, bypassing the need to sift through static pages and newly published articles on Google. For instance, searching for “Jerry Sloan” yields pages with striking similarities, despite Google’s link-based algorithm and Twitter’s “Retweet”-based algorithm both delivering credible and relevant information to the forefront.
Consider another example: a search for the current situation in Egypt. Twitter’s results provide the most up-to-date and critical news updates, accompanied by humor and opinion pieces, making it a more valuable source than Google’s static results, despite the inclusion of recent news articles. Twitter’s niche focus may be less comprehensive than Google’s, but it has become a preferred choice over time.
The simplicity of Twitter’s interface and the sheer volume of real-time updates are powerful tools. For instance, when McDonald’s introduced oatmeal to its menu, searching “McDonald’s oatmeal” on Twitter provided immediate feedback from customers. Similarly, during major news or sports events, Twitter offers an up-to-the-second glimpse of global opinion, a feature that wasn’t originally intended for search purposes.
This functionality is a side effect of Twitter’s design, yet it excels in providing the social search experience that Google and Bing have struggled to achieve for years. The underlying lesson is the importance of participating in social conversations.
Are you actively engaged in these conversations?
