Google | Twitter = Real Time Search Engine

Accuracy Meets Democracy: Real Time Search with Google or Twitter.

Real Time Search with Twitter search.twitter.com

We’ve seen how Twitter serves as a real time search engine. After the acquisition of Summize, Twitter integrated search into their microblogging system. But many didn’t know how to access Twitter’s search engine. Recently Twitter caught up with features provided by the Power Twitter Plugin for Firefox and added search to profile pages throughout their platform.

One of the beautiful things about real-time search with Twitter is being able to know the pulse of a subject. The real pulse of a subject. What people are really tweeting about on an up-to-the-minute ecosystem of thoughts 140 characters or less. Take a look at search.twitter.com and see for yourself. It’s awesome. Check back an hour later, and the search results will have changed to display what’s current that hour. In my spot checks for consistency, I noticed that the same results will usually show up for more common terms. I guess it’s that whole viral phenomenon. People retweet awesome content/links so those links tend to stay high in Twitter search, even though the tweeters change.

The biggest downside with real time Twitter search is the relevancy. For instance, when searching for the fantastic band A Camp on Twitter, I find little that points me in the right direction. Don’t see much about the band at all, actually. Even though they just launched a great second album about a week ago. And they’re touring North America.

Maybe the Twitter demographic isn’t the same as the A Camp demographic? Untrue. I know there were relevant tweets about A Camp in the Twittersphere. I made two. But my signal wasn’t as recent as the noise. Here lies the downside with Twitter’s real time search. Everything else is fantastic.

But what if I want to find real time info on A Camp and don’t want to scroll through the Twitter SERPs? Here comes Google to the rescue.

Real Time Search with Google as_qdr=d&q=

Google search is often faulted for not being real-time enough. That’s about to change, I suspect, with Google’s moves toward social, and integration of all the microblogging bits out there into its search results. But before all that wait takes its toll and time, why not use the real time search Google already provides? Here’s a little hack to make Google search real time:

In your URL bar, enter http://www.google.com/search?as_qdr=d&q=the+phrase+your+searching+for

Here’s what a Google real time search displays for A Camp:

Nice. Pretty Relevant. Not completely though. Their latest album Colonia is only mentioned once, and A Camp’s North American tour isn’t mentioned at all. Overall though, I did find what I want, and Google did refer me to the current record. Pretty much what I was searching for.

What I’d like to see is the relevancy of Google SERPs in Twitter SERPs. The accuracy and the democracy. The situation could be solved, perhaps using the disambiguation protocol of Wikipedia. Perhaps some other ingenious method – I’m sure the Twitter team has some ideas. Until then, we’re blessed with two great Real-Time search engines that will change the world. They already have.

Note: Friendfeed and Google Reader are other great alternatives to Real Time Search. Though I categorize them a little differently than Twitter and Google Search. Posts ensue.

Related Articles:

• ‘Paradigm shifting’ Twitter adds search (guardian.co.uk)
• The Search Engine Known as Twitter (marketingpilgrim.com)
• Realtime Twitter Search Results on Google (MT Hacks) (mt-hacks.com)
• Dynamic Quality Control for the Web (sciencetext.com)
• Mining The Thought Stream (techcrunch.com)
• The Real Time Web is changing how I consume information (scandium.wordpress.com)
• Twitter’s Big Search Plans: A Google Killer? (searchenginewatch.com)