Is Twitter Making Google Shake in Their Boots?

April 2, 2009 · Filed Under google, Twitter · Comments Off

Image via CrunchBase

First, my apologies for doing two blog posts in one day. I felt that this was just far too interesting to not pass along and I’m sure you’re going to be hearing a LOT about this in the upcoming days and weeks.

An interesting story just came across my desk (read email) about how Twitter is currently beta-testing something called the “Discovery Engine“.

This improvement to Twitter which is currently being beta tested by a few users, places a search box at the top of the page and then displays the results of that search within your current Twitter window.

If you currently use Twitter, you know that all the Tweets of people you have chosen to follow show up in your own Twitter window in real time. With the new search feature that Twitter is testing, whenever you search on a term, your Twitter window will then be populated with those users you follow who have referenced that search term themselves.

This new feature also allows you to save searches. So if there is a search that you do on a regular basis, you can tell Twitter to keep this search phrase available for you and it will do so by placing it on your Twitter window.

I’m still not certain (since this new feature is still in beta) if that means that the search terms you have saved will be available for others to see.

Twitter is also testing out trends. Another program called Tweetdeck does this already but Twitter is now testing it out within their own program (again, in beta). Essentially how this works is that Twitter will be able to determine what topics are “hot” right now.

So what does this have to do with Google?

As it stands now, whenever Google decides to add something to their index regardless of what that “something” is; a blog post, a news story, an updated web page, etc., Google’s bot first has to find that information, add it to its index, sort it out to see where it belongs and then eventually have it show up on a related page.

Here’s a great example. Let’s say that you’re an American Idol fan. You watch it religiously and just can’t wait to talk about the latest “Idol” that has been voted off.

Since the results are read (and not known) until it’s revealed on the air live, no one (aside from the group who tallies the votes) knows who will go and who will stay.

But once those results are read you can bet that hundreds if not thousands of Twitterers are talking about the results within seconds after the vote has been read live on air.

The problem is that in order for Google to show this information in its search results, it first has to be placed in print somewhere online. One could argue that the Twitter feed itself that is updating could be considered part of that “print”.

Where the delay lies however, is that Google’s bot needs to first find that information, organize it, decide where to put it, and then finally start to display it within their search results.

Since Twitter is “powered by the people” this information is instantly available and no one has to sit around and wait for news on the topic. If you want to know, just login to Twitter and see what people are saying.

What’s interesting is that Google just earlier this year set up their own Twitter account and this has led to a lot of speculation.

Is Google “checking out their competition?”

Is Google going to make an offer for Twitter?

Do Twitterers even want that?

You can bet that Google is smacking themselves over the head wondering “why didn’t I think of that?” (I personally picture Homer Simpson saying “D’oh!”).

None the less, it will be an interesting story to keep tabs on. What have you heard through the Twitter grapevine?