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Google Partners With Twitter For Search

An anonymous reader writes "According to the Google blog, it has partnered up with Twitter to bring tweets into its search results in the next few months. While this is exciting news, how the feature is going to present itself is a huge question. Indiblogger presents a comprehensive list of how it should be. From the article, the points discussed are: relevance of tweets with the search term, twitter and Google advertising, even a Google-Twitter API."

27 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Bing Too by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Twitter cut deals with Bing and Google.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  2. Bing claimed exclusivity by bruce_the_loon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The funniest part is the news articles presenting the Bing partnership as an exclusive one.

    Bet Steve's tossing chairs now.

    --
    Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
  3. WTF! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the f**k would I want to have mindless twits mixed in with my search results?

    1. Re:WTF! by Daengbo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Exactly. I was upset enough when spammy blogs with duplicate content filled my search results, but now I wave to deal with one-line tweets, too? Ugh.

  4. Just let me turn it off. by Remloc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as I can turn it off. Permanently in my login profile.

    I do not want the inane ramblings of some twittering teen-ager littering my Google results.

    1. Re:Just let me turn it off. by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 4, Informative

      If in doubt, GiveMeBackMyGoogle.com has succeeded in stripping out results from many "sponsored" domains and aggregating sites for a good long time. I expect they'll list twitter as one of the blocks before long.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    2. Re:Just let me turn it off. by Daengbo · · Score: 2, Funny

      If Google does that, there'll be nothing left. Why have the deal at all?

    3. Re:Just let me turn it off. by snspdaarf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Twitter doesn't seem to be popular with teenagers.

      Probably because it is filled with "the inane ramblings are from the 25-40 crowd." I never thought I would say this, but, man, am I happy to be over 40!

      --
      Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
  5. Response to Bing? by TwistedGreen · · Score: 2, Informative

    That was fast. Yesterday Bing announced they were going to integrate realtime Twitter and Facebook status updates into search. Competition is good, but Bing will have to find a better strategy.

  6. Been covered on TWiG by RMH101 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Leo Laporte and This Week In Google covered this with an interview with Google.
    Basically it boils down to: Twitter results can be valuable for real-time, breaking news. Less so after the fact. If you googled for "Trafigura" a week or so ago, you wouldn't have seen much of interest. If you searched Twitter whilst it was breaking news of the injunction, it was full of info. Google are savvy with search and I'm sure they've got this all factored into PageRank already.

    1. Re:Been covered on TWiG by stoolpigeon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think it twitter search would also be useful to anyone managing a product or project being used publicly. Being able to find mentions on twitter would allow one to be more proactive in dealing with issues and also help find happy customers/users more quickly.

      I had a gripe about adobe air on linux a while back and posted about it on twitter. Within minutes I was contacted by two Adobe developers and they helped me file a bug report. That was the first time I saw a real opportunity for twitter to be something more than a way to keep in touch with friends.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  7. Oh no! by dkf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's time for Twoogle!

    --
    "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
  8. Microsoft claimed no such thing by Animaether · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just because the press doesn't do their jobs anymore...

    Here's the Telegraph's article...
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/6401062/Microsofts-Bing-signs-landmark-deals-with-Twitter-and-Facebook.html

    I quote (emphasis mine):

    Both deals are understood to be non-exclusive, with rumours of similar conversations ongoing between Twitter and Google

    ( Ah, and yes, Facebook, too. The only 'surprising' thing is that /. didn't report on this, but does report on the Google deal, without even a reference to the Bing deal. )

  9. 140 chars - the holder of so much info by IBBoard · · Score: 3, Funny

    Great. I'm sure that with Twitter messages in the search results they'll just become so packed with information. After all, 140chars can hol<eof>

    1. Re:140 chars - the holder of so much info by sakdoctor · · Score: 5, Funny

      Results 1 - 10 of about 368,000,000

      Cant reply im on the toilet right now LOL

  10. This could be beneficial... by MrCrassic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can see this being immediately useful for news searching, as tweets tend to be an extremely fast source for breaking news in all fields. Twitter has also been useful for finding interesting articles on topics relevant to my interests (security, IT and a bit of politics), so tapping this could open up a lot of information previously hidden behind Twitter's walls.

    1. Re:This could be beneficial... by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Funny
      britneyspears: im eatin a donut lol i now i shoodnt but there so delish
      britneyspears: donut stuck
      britneyspears: cant breeth
      britneyspears: srsly sum1 dial 9!1
      britneyspears: help mi u fckrz

      The entertainment world was rocked today by new of the untimely death of troubled diva Britney Spears...

      I think we may have different ideas on what "useful" means.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  11. Please go away by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2, Insightful
    How long before Twitter becomes a has-been like Everquest, Myspace, Tron Guy, and that rabbit that balances pancakes on its head? Anyone got an estimate on the timeline? Don't these things usually take 18 months to complete?

    Oh yeah, right, twitter is a game-changer that can overthrow governments. Good job they did in Iran, wot?

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    1. Re:Please go away by Nihixul · · Score: 2, Informative

      While I'm hardly a Twitter devotee, I don't think it's fair to measure the value of Twitter's service during the Iran election fallout by whether or not it actually led to a regime change.

  12. Just adds more noise.. by owlnation · · Score: 2, Informative

    This does not seem to be a good thing. I find that Google already brings up far too much noise in the form of forum posts. All this does is add a whole new level of noise.

    I dare say Demi Moore will find this useful, but I do not want this at all. I guess I now have to add a "-twitter" along with the "-ebay -amazon -wikipedia", etc qualifiers in order to actually find something of value.

    1. Re:Just adds more noise.. by tonycheese · · Score: 2, Informative

      I completely disagree with the idea of "forum noise" unless I'm misunderstanding you somehow. My searches very often land me on a useful forum page somewhere. For example, if I'm looking up an answer to a question related to a game or technical help with software, I will more often than not end up on a forum where people have discussed or are discussing the issue. Of course, if you are also adding -wikipedia to your searches, we are working in two completely different planes of existence.
      For twitter, though, I do agree with the sentiment that there should be an option to disable it.

  13. Re:So, If I Google "Kayne West" by ShiningSomething · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course, that will be your own fault for googling "Kanye West"

  14. Who needs to search tweeter? To find what? by ponos · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Honestly, given the nature of the site and the kind of communication it promotes, I wonder whether there is any *original* information that can be found in there. I mean, great scientists, philosophers and artists did exchange letters in the past, but even if we're talking about some real geniuses, I don't see how the "tweet" format can ever contain anything more than shit. It's not easy to convey a properly argumented original thought in 160 characters... So, in the end I don't see why anyone would care to search tweeter data at all. Other maybe for the purpose of some obscure IgNobel-worthy research or in the case of stalkers following the hot star of the moment (when exactly did she pee? that is the question...).

    P.

  15. Leave the strings attached by GrantRobertson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I see I am not in disagreement with anyone as to the additional clutter that this will likely add to our search results. It seems that Google continuously piles more straw on the metaphorical haystack, leaving the few needles of information I seek buried ever deeper. The thing is that all those pieces of straw really have strings attached in the form of metadata. Google knows - or should know - where all the pages they index come from. They should be able to relatively easily categorize those sites as manufacturer's sites, shopping sites, news sites, magazine sites, truly educational sites, blogs, forums, etc. But it seems Google cuts all those strings when they pile the indexed pages into the haystack leaving me to sort through them manually. Isn't that what we invented computers for? If they would simply leave the strings attached and allow users to "pull them" then we could simply choose not to receive results from shopping sites or whatever. As it is, looking for a manufacturer's specifications on something can be maddening because of all the shopping sites that come up instead. (Remember, one does not always know the URL to a manufacturer's web site.)

    In effect, I wish Google would institute a system wherein we could check off or uncheck which types of sites we would like to receive search results from.

    P.S. What the heck is wrong with this text edit box. The text cursor only shows up when I hover the mouse over some portions of the text in this box. When I hover over other portions the regular pointer cursor is displayed. If I click when that pointer is displayed it does not place the cursor into that location in the text. Instead it selects the box within the HTML and typing does not go into the box (the box does not have focus). This is a real pain. The code on Slashdot is getting worse with every revision. Geez, it even prevents me from selecting text in some locations even if I have already started the selection drag. This is insane! Please bring back the old editor.

  16. wut u tkn bt? by uncanny · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I dont understand the point of all of this? How will joining twitter into google searches bring me more porn?

  17. Value by slashmojo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    and nothing of value was found..

    Twitter does have its (commercial) uses but there seems to be such an enormous amount of crap posted and 'retweeted' ad infinitum. I hope bing/google can reliably filter and sort it so only good stuff surfaces but I have my doubts.

  18. The dumbing down of Google by Animats · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Over the past two years, it seems that Google has been redesigning their search system for dumber and dumber users. They now seem to be targeting the room-temp IQ crowd.

    Google used to just suggest spelling corrections. Now, it applies them. If you don't want spelling correction, you must put the search term in quotes. This leads to results like the one for "ndia intellectual property", where NDIA is the National Defense Industrial Association. Google gives back mostly results about "India", not "NDIA". This happens on all searches where the term searched is near a common word.

    Then there's the missing word problem. It used to be that if you searched for several words, all the words had to be present. That's no longer true. Google will return results it likes that don't contain some of the words. If you want to insist that a word be present, you have to quote it.