Google prepares to launch a service that indexes and ranks content from
microblogging services like Twitter. Since it's very easy to post updates and the posts are usually very short, micro-blogging services are great for live blogging, posting real-time information about an event.
Twitter's search engine has two important drawbacks: it's limited to Twitter and it sorts the results by date. While there are other search engines like
Tweefind that try to sort Twitter posts by relevancy and search engines like
Twingly that index multiple microblogging sites, none of them does a great job.
Much like
Google Blog Search, Google's microblogging search service will sort the results by relevancy and it also be integrated with Google's web search engine: the keywords that are frequently used in recent posts will trigger a MicroBlogsearch universal search group.
Here's the description used in Google's localization service:
"
Recent updates about QUERY. This is the MicroBlogsearch Universal result group header text. A Microblog is a blog with very short entries. Twitter is the popular service associated with this format."
In May,
Marissa Mayer discussed the significance of Twitter for Google:
"What's really happening in Twitter is that there are a lot of clues in it in terms of what's happening that's interesting overall. It's similar to what we see in Google Trends, where people will often type what they're interested in into the search box, and we can make some predictions off of that. So we are interested in being able to offer, for example, micro-blogging and micro-messaging in our search. Particularly in Blog Search and possibly in Web Search, but we don't have any particular plans to announce."
Labels: Web Search
Could you supply a link to this Google localization service thing?
this is great news, google is doing good job, i tried various twitter search but no one was as good as google is.
google blog search is also really helpful to bloggers like me.
Lets see what google will do with microblogging search.
regards
Amit Patekar
http://www.webworldguru.com
@Gabe:
http://www.google.com/transconsole/
said on June 13, 2009 4:13 AM PDT:
See http://topsy.com/
I think this will increase the already high spam ratio on Twitter and other services. So there are good points and bad points to this.
Just curious: How come you say Twingly does not do a great job? Not to disagree with you, just to see what you think are possible points of improvement...
@Jardenberg:
Twingly sorts the results by date, so it's not much better than Twitter Search, if you don't take into account that it aggregates messages from other services. Sorting the results by date is not a good way to find the most interesting messages about a topic: there's a lot of noise and a search engine should be able to eliminate spam, duplicate messages and only show the most useful posts.
Twitter has a lot of signals that could be used to rank messages: the number of followers, the authority of the author in Twitter's social graph, the frequency of posting messages, the number of replies or re-tweets etc.
Topsy is different--it's indexing the web, not the tweets. It's actually competing with web search, using reference via Twitter as an alternative to links as a means of computing authority. It's an interesting idea, if not quite ready for prime time.
http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/05/27/topsy-tippling-the-stream-of-conversations/
As for a better Twitter search, I'd sure like one. I'm not thrilled with the native Twitter Search, but all of the alternatives are even worse. I'm curious to see how Google will approach the problem, since this doesn't strike me as being in their sweet spot. Any word on the launch time frame?
@Daniel:
I don't when it will be launched, but Google Blog Search is a good reference for the ranking problem.
A patent shows some of the signals used for ranking blog posts and I'm sure some of them can be used in the new service: links from other sites, the number of subscriptions, the amount of duplicate content, posts added at a predictable time.
RyanK said on June 13, 2009 3:08 PM PDT:
So... how does this differ from.. http://search.twitter.com?
Overall,I believe this will certainly have a positive effect by providing the opportunity to sort by relevancy far more effectively! Fantastic news!!!
www.propertysyndication.com
The search results from Google would prove to be worthless is Twitter and other websites block the bots.
search.twitter.com only works with space separated languages, for example Japanese search seldom works. As Google always support East Asian languages well from the beginning, this one will be welcomed.
There are indeed lots of hidden treasures in Twitter. You just need to use a tool like TipTop at http://www.feeltiptop.com to squeeze the juice out of the lemon. For example, this is what TipTop has to say about Google's microblogging search engine at this moment: http://feeltiptop.com/microblogging%20search%20engine/
Is this a preview of the Google Twitter search?
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=004053080137224009376%3Aicdh3tsqkzy
Nice to see this. Well i've want this thanks.
why did Google want to launch a microblogging search engine?
It is great that Google is committed enough to sends signals that they are moving into the Realtime web. As for competition with Twingly and Twitter Search and Tweefind and the rest, standing in each other's shoulders is always the fastest way forward. Twingly's Project Shinobi will push the co-opetition one step further: http://blog.twingly.com/2009/06/11/announcement-twingly-to-launch-project-shinobi-on-october-1st-2009/
Cheers,
Martin Källström
CEO Twingly
so search.twitter.com with a little added Google magic?
Google's great search algorithms and search bots will aid in driving up traffic streams for Twitter.
Once Twitter becomes a money making entity, the Google Twitter Search Engine will help drive up revenue for Twitter. Of course this would also benefit Google in driving up ad traffic revenue as well. Also, the tactical placement of strong keywords used in Twittering will be recognized by the Google bots and aid in ranking, which will be a valuable asset.
Looking forward to the Google Twitter Search Engine.
@ DomainMaximus
LEHS said on June 15, 2009 9:11 AM PDT:
Would be nice though! Curious wether it will be a succes or not!:D
The value behind Tweefind is in the algorithm that works 24 hours a day to assign a rank to every Twitter user, depending on how and how often he uses Twitter. Many different parameters are taken into account and the final rank might change daily. The results of the search is a consequence of that rank.
The same philosophy is applied by the recently launched Tweepfind. It searches inside the user's profile/bio for certain keyword and display the results ordered according to the same rank. Over 4M twitter users have been ranked so far and the algorithm is getting better over time.
A new version of Tweefind.com will be released in a couple of days, so stay tuned.
Luca Filigheddu
CEO
Tweefind.com
Tweepfind.com
Tweefight.com
Tweedeogame.com
said on June 15, 2009 9:13 AM PDT:
Wondering by the way what the reaction from Twitter will be!! :D
LEHS
www.lightfresh.nl
said on June 16, 2009 1:35 AM PDT:
I think its great!
Fuzz One said on June 16, 2009 1:49 AM PDT:
have you got a reference link to back your claim about Google launching this microblogging service?
Google's strength here may be that it can dish up microblogs alongside all the other content, whereas search.twitter.com is silo'd into just its own. That gives google a mainstream edge over twitter.
Brian www.moreover.com
There are other people working on this as well, namely StanzIQ. See http://mashable.com/2008/12/01/stanziq/.
search.twitter.com is extremely unreliably, and often is unable to find posts more than a few weeks old
tony said on June 22, 2009 8:39 AM PDT:
I think that GOOGLE, is by far the largest search and is growing. All they need to do to get one over on 'Microsoft', is to start their own computer oporating system. Because I also think that they can do better than microsoft. TONY
beep tech said on August 1, 2009 1:49 AM PDT:
i think google is on the top of search engines with 65 % of market share ..
Amruta said on August 9, 2009 1:08 AM PDT:
Yes, I just wonder, how many people really open bing or anything else yet..and search on that, we are so used to just starting with Google. And Google is going to be the absolute lead if it keeps doing what it is....giving people the ease to look for stuff and provide excellent services. Cheers !
playlist said on August 19, 2009 7:54 AM PDT:
if it happens definalty twitter and fb going to have a hard time as facebook is also going to launch a lite micro system for its users
software said on August 22, 2009 4:57 AM PDT:
i think google is making difference and now as microsoft and yahoo combines their search engine methology bing is going to make different as per quality concern .definatly people will get good response from both site
Do you know when Google is going to launch its microblogging search engine?
said on September 8, 2009 1:43 AM PDT:
See www.targ8.com for lots of real-time search sites in one search box.
its good to se enhancment from google as the market leaders were way behind in this field
I hope google is now again in microblogging competition but its just as their authorities in search engines but still it will take alot of time to compete twitter
said on October 26, 2009 9:13 AM PDT:
See also, http://www.twittersearchengine.net
