5 Reasons Why Google Should Fear (or Buy) Twitter
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Ever since Google began to gain momentum in the early years of the 21st century (and then went public in 2004), people have assumed that Google is unstoppable. Although other search engines have fought and clawed in an attempt to take back share of the search market from Google, they have all failed (yes Yahoo and Microsoft, I’m talking about you).
Because of Google’s dominance over these other large corporations, it’s easy to see why most people would assume that no company could come up with enough money to come close to competing with Google.
However, over the last couple of months, one company has emerged that could present a real threat to Google. While many people could not grasp why they had been able to raise over fifty-five million dollars in funding, people within the tech industry were still obsessed with the concept of Twitter for over a year. However, it was only recently when everyone started to realize that Twitter could actually pose a direct threat to Google (hence their ability to raise so much venture capital).
Without further ado, here’s the list of five reasons why Google should fear (or more likely, buy) Twitter:
It’s Personalized: If Google is a vast library with only one librarian to guide you around (who can be hard of hearing depending on how complicated the information is that you are looking for), then Twitter is the same library but with all of your friends (and other individuals who you trust) standing around different areas of the library to point out the information that you should actually care about.
It’s Flexible: While it’s true that you can use Google on different platforms (such as your desktop or your mobile phone), Google can’t come close to offering the wide variety of flexible experiences that Twitter can. Whether you are using IceRocket Twitter Search to search and reply in real-time, Twitpic to share pictures with your followers, Tweetdeck to keep up with your stream of Twitter activity, Tweetie to use Twitter on the iPhone or BackTweets to monitor who is tweeting about your blog or web site, it’s easy to see that the ways to adapt Twitter to your own preferences are almost endless.
It Can Be Customized: Although it’s true that Google allows you to create a personalized homepage, Google simply can’t offer the same level of customization as Twitter. For example, Twitter has mentioned the possibility of serving local news to individuals who are interested in this topic. While this may not seem that significant, the reason that it’s a big deal is because Twitter is able to inject this topic (or any other topic for that matter) directly into your Twitter stream (which means that you don’t have to worry about anything except for absorbing the information).
It’s User Generated: This obviously ties in with the first point, but it’s an important point to note in itself. While Google is dependant upon it’s crawlers to go out and find the material for its index (which then must be organized by its algorithm), Twitter doesn’t have to worry about collecting a single drop of information. Instead, it let’s its extremely active participants collect and share all of this information on their own.
It’s Fresh: Although the first four reasons on this list are all important and should be enough to make Google pay close attention to Twitter (which they already are), the most direct threat to Google is because of Twitter’s ability to deliver fresh and relevant information the minute it becomes available.
In fact, it’s this exact reason why Twitter began to gain so much attention back in October of 2007. When wildfires broke out in California, many people turned to Twitter to get up to the date information about the progress of the wildfires. While a search of Google yielded a couple of news results and a bunch of information that was not relevant at the time (since people didn’t want to know about the history of wildfires, but what was happening at the moment), Twitter was giving people the exact, fresh information that they needed.
While Google has been doing their best to deliver relevant content that is fresh (by taking steps such as creating their Query Deserves Freshness model), so far Twitter has proved that once again, human contributions simply cannot be matched by an algorithm.
Please share your thoughts in the comments section below
wniizzati
Perri aka @betheb...
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Ann Smarty
Kerry Rego
I love me some twitter hit me up @willburns1
good post..very informative..I agree to all the 5 reasons.Twitter has become a powerful source for all business…Thanks for sharing
google really should incorporate twitter more. its becoming such a powerful medium it has to be taken seriously more.
daniel’s last blog post..Arnold Schwarzenegger talks upcoming Terminator and Expendables roles
The only problem with Twitter I’ve been seeing recently is that it is heavily manipulated. Google is mature, it has been through spamming and is clean now while Twitter is still to learn to keep its users free of spam.
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Ann,
Great point. I agree Twitter is still in it’s infancy which is part of what makes it exciting. Also it is more difficult to define spam on Twitter since it is acceptable to self promote to a point. It will be interesting to see how everything unfolds with Twitter in the future.
Not surprising. Twitter is so fresh and aren’t we all about instant gratification?
Absolutely True’s last blog post..absolutelytrue: @atomicpoet But, what if I really AM a superstar?
Agreed!
Twitter appears to have risen above all other “micro-blogging” platforms. So why shouldn’t google buy them?
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Twitter is a very popular site to be sure, but they have yet to find a way to be profitable.
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El Di Pablo,
This is true but in my opinion money follows success. I am confident that Twitter will have no problem monetizing. Google has shown the awesome ability to monetize search and now Twitter has real time search. Think of the possibilities.
I see you are a new visitor to my blog. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I hope to see you here in the future.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Google buy off twitter. They seem to buy everything else that’s cool. Plus, twitter needs to find a way to monetize their site… who better to help them.
Jeff F.’s last blog post..Bukowsky: @hawksdomain LOL… alot of people have been a little freaked out by it. I guess they all thought I looked like a character from Shrek.
I think it would be cool for Twitter to refuse Google’s buyout offer if and when it happens.
There’s a new player in town boys.
Thanks for commenting Jeff.
Great article Gerald! Great timing too!
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I think one of the most important aspects of Twitter is the wisdom of crowds concept it brings to gaining information. While Google’s rankings and search results are based on a seemingly endless number of variables measured by a mathematical algorithm – an algorithm that can be manipulated, no less – there is no substitute for the human element that Twitter brings to the mix.
I often pose questions to my Twitterverse and receive answers in real-time from people I’ve come to trust and respect through my previous interactions with them. Trying to get an answer to the same question via Google could take several different keyword searches and weeding through a thousand results. The best answer could be buried on page 42 of the any one of a dozen keyword searches.
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Alysson,
I agree with you 110%. I often use Twitter as a resource when I am seeking a solution to a problem. Also you are so correct about the human element. One of the great things about Twitter and SM in general for me is the “human element” I have so many great friends from all around the world as a result of my involvement in social media and they are all the most valuable resource in my opinion.
Thanks for commenting and for your continued support.
As one of the above commenters said, the biggest problem Twitter faces is quality control. If they can get a better wrap around that, then they might pose a serious threat to the big G.
Yes I agree with you and Ann Eric. Twitter is still young so I’m sure they will have a few growing pains along the way.
Being able to search/follow the real time conversation is Twitter’s competitive search advantage. By the time Google indexes a page, that’s old news on Twitter.
Good stuff here,
Matt
Matt | Small Biz Bee’s last blog post..To Twitter or not to Twitter, that is the Question!
Agreed. Twitter is a great medium for breaking news.Thanks for commenting Matt.
Great post! You’re absolutely right twitter is definitely something goggle is going to have to watch out for. I don’t think google will have a hope in keeping up with twitter when it comes to fresh content. Nothing beats good old human interaction!
It seems Google buys Jaiku instead of Twitter!
Phaoloo’s last blog post..4 Ways To Be The First To Gain Traffic
While I do agree that Twitter has attracted everyone’s attention and that it has a huge potential yet to be developed, I’m not sure that it poses a threat to the Big G. Time will tell, I guess.
Nice post!
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Yes indeed time will tell.
I don’t see why Google would have to buy Twitter to get the benefits of its power and freshness. Most of the Twitter tools you mention are produced by another company. Other than Not Invented Here Syndrome (which Google seems to avoid pretty well) why couldn’t Google just index Twitter, and intelligently build those results into search and other products? If it’s not OK with Twitter’s TOS, I’m sure paying Twitter a special license for that ability would be a lot cheaper than buying them.
Interesting suggestions. There are definitely many possibilities. It will be interesting to see how everything unfolds with Twitter in the future.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
As mentioned above Twitter is heavily manipulated. That said, I do not think it is a good idea, at least at the moment.
Google has enough of such problems themselves that they have to solve.
Not a new disaster please…
I think all your points are valid in respect to the benefits and strengths of twitter however I dont believe it is a significant threat to Google…..yet.
Maybe as twitter develops and begins to introduce new facets and more and more people launch twitter applications we will see less use of Google and other search engines due to twitter. But for now, twitter is for communicating and conversing, Google is for searching and finding.
I may now use twitter for breaking news, but I never used Google for that anyway, I used my rss reader so there is no real threat there.
I believe Google may decide to purchase twitter, or at least sign a partnership to index tweets, but dont think they are direct competitors at the moment.
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Yes I agree Twitter is definitely the perfect medium for breaking news.
Google can’t be happy with just indexing Twitter. I don’t have a gmail account because it’s linked to a cell phone number and I don’t want my cell cross referenced with my IP address which is associated with my physical address. Google is like the IRS except more efficient at collecting data and if they owned Twitter your “profile” would take on a whole new meaning. Hopefully, Twitter will stay out of the clutches of the Googly evil control freak.
Jones’s last blog post..
I like your analogy “Google is like the IRS”
All very valid points, but didn’t Facebook already do all of this?
Considering that Facebook is compliant across multiple platforms, allows for sharing of not only text, but video, sound, and photos, AND it allows for complete organization of everything you upload.
If anyone should be worried about Twitter, it isn’t Google.
well I think facebook is great for connecting with old classmates and what have you but if I get superpoked one more time….
5 reasons why Google should NOT fear or buy:
1. twitter is down;
2. twitter is up;
3. twitter is down;
4. twitter is up;
5. twitter is down;
That reminds me of The State of the Web SUMMER 2008
Yes Twitter is so popular that there have been some capacity issues in the past. Although I don’t see the fail whale nearly as much as we used to last year.
Google buying Twitter – oh yea, that’s a superb idea. The following is one of two or both things I see happening.
Charging “per tweet” and setting up daily, weekly, or monthly “packages”.
No self promotions whatsoever – news only.
Viva Google! Yea whatever…
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..798 Views & 5 Comments – Are You Doing All You Can To Engage Them?
LOL Dennis let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
pay per tweet perhaps? 
Exactly right. Just think of the possibilities as low as a penny or even a 1/2 cent per tweet.
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..798 Views & 5 Comments – Are You Doing All You Can To Engage Them?
Like the post but can’t agree. Twitter’s self limitations will never replace Google’s index. Also, Twitter is a late player to the game. It’s fun, but I don’t think the guys at Goggle are losing sleep.
Interesting thoughts but what I feel that twitter has still got a long way to go before it becomes a significant threat or even a buying option for Google.
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If Twitter can’t come up with a way to proactively keep spammers from gaming the system, it’ll fall by the wayside when the next big thing happens. Google will keep moving along, because they’ve established themselves and have done a good job of keeping search results relevant.
I like Twitter, but there’s a long ways to go until it’s truly something that Google should fear.
Besides, Twitter is like a slightly modded version of old school chatrooms (remember when you posted your chat to a page, and it refreshed to show you the most recent chats? Same thing, just hashtags and following replaces chatrooms.).
Great post, by the way! It’s always interesting to view the different perspectives on this.
Roger Sikes’s last blog post..Southwest Airlines Rapping Attendant
This is an excellent post, and I just excerpted the “librarian” metaphor to my Posterous, and thereby on to all my Twitter peeps.
BTW @Roger, Twitter having the IM/chat aspect mashed up with email/blog-like/commenting asynchronous features is exactly the reason for Twitters success.
As the post mentions, the crowd-sourced aggregator/guide function that Twitter users are naturally/effortlessly fulfilling is exactly what other crowd-sourced “search” tools like Mahalo have failed to resoundingly deliver.
Twitter is like a hive-mind with interesting social connection wormholes (TM).
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