wheresitworking?

Mash Twitter Search with Google to See the Real Value

Having trouble seeing the value in Twitter search? Seems like many people are. Many people being those who don’t use Twitter, yet. Twitter comes up in conversations with everyone lately, and often the subject turns to how Twitter will monetize. I keep up on this topic (seemingly through osmosis), so I generally will throw out the rumored monetization strategies that have been blogged about. That’s when many people will ask me to explain the value in Twitter search. I tell them to mash it up with Google using the awesome Greasemonkey script from MT Hacks, and see for themselves.

When this script was released, I installed it immediately and kind of forgot about it. All that day, I’d run a Google search, and be surprised when I saw the Twitter results pop up.

Then it happened: I started viewing those results and clicking through to Tweets, shortened URLs, and peoples’ Twitter profiles – instead of clicking on the Google results.

The “ah-ha” moment had happened for me: there really is value in real-time search. Or so I thought.

I will admit that the results have become a bit, “different” for many types of searches in the last few months. There is plenty of spam, or whatever you want to call it, for certain keywords. And there is plenty of garbage for some high-profile terms, but I still use it several times during the day.

Check it out, and if you still don’t see the value in the real-time data that Twitter has “aggregated” for us to search, please let me know why?

Tags: Google, Grease Monkey scripts, real-time search, Twitter search

Skittles New Site All About Social Media

If you haven’t seen the new Skittles.com I highly suggest you check it out.  It’s a fascinating concept that is pretty much entirely focused on Skittles presence in social media sites, rather than the Skittles domain itself. The “Products” links all direct to Wikipedia, the “Friends” link takes you their Facebook page, and the main underlying “home” page is Twitter search.  “Media” links to “Photos” on Flickr and “Videos” on YouTube.

What is remarkable about this is as much the concept as the faith in the Twitter search application not drastically changing in the near future.  Many of the rumors about Twitter’s monetization needs are centered on creating revenue from the search application in some way.

Another concern Skittles may have is the ability for anyone to spam their “home page” by simply including the “skittles” keyword.  There is a splendid example in the screenshot I captured.

Regardless, hat’s off to Skittles and whatever agency developed this concept.  I submitted a contact form on the “site” to see who it was, but no reply yet.

Tags: branding, social media, social media marketing, Twitter search