Google Syncs Up With Twitter
Posted: Wednesday 21 October, 2009
Pete Goold
The longer I've used Twitter, the more I've realised that it has a potential that is hugely compatible to the service offered by a traditional search engine. Whilst Google offers information on where to find the nearest sushi bar (for example), Twitter offers information about people actually in that sushi bar, eating right now. The two aren't exactly competitive - people are always going to want to find universally relevant information - but the real-time immediacy of the data contained wthin Twitter was obviously going to be its route to finding a strong commercial model, by dramatically enhancing the search experience for users.
As a twitter evangelist, I'm delighted that this looks to be coming true. With the recent changes to Google algorithms (such as Caffeine) increasing the prominence given to social media mentions as a factor in search engine results, the logical next step was always going to be to combine the two.
At some point, SEO is going to have to consider Twitter as a search vehicle in its own right. Whilst that's perhaps a little way off at present - with hashtags a little too obvious, overt and primitive to be compared to SEO in a traditional search engine - I suspect that Twitter will now evolve quickly and we're going to see search marketers keen to find ways to gain prominence through real-time search.
