6 ms·

RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my

59 points by vulpes 17y ago

mrshoe 17y ago
Microsoft unveils Bing Twitter search today and Google's hurried response is a blog post about how they've "reached an agreement" to include tweets in their search results. Ouch. Microsoft still has some fight in it yet, folks! It's not often that other companies are scrambling to keep up with them these days.
- sgk284 17y ago
  Perhaps it's more telling that Bing thought they had one up on Google, only to find out that Google was already there.
  - mrshoe 17y ago
    That's an interesting way to spin it in Google's favor, but: 1) When MS signed a non-exclusive agreement with Twitter, they must have been 99% sure that Google would be in on the Twitter action as well (i.e. I doubt they ever thought they were one up on Google), and 2) The point is that Google is not already there. All they have to show for themselves is an agreement so far. (MS has http://www.bing.com/twitter http://www.bing.com/twitter up and running already.) Being first to market isn't everything, but I still think this is a noteworthy exception to the norm of recent years.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Being first to market is fine if it works. If you actually search for anything at all you get an error page.
    - misuba 17y ago
      Wow, everyone's signed non-exclusive agreements, no one's shipped anything stable... it's almost as if there's nothing to discuss.
- dschobel 17y ago
  I doubt this battle will be settled (or even affected) by the fact that MS was first to market with this feature. Who has the better integration and implementation is far more interesting.
- seldo 17y ago
  Agreed. This looks like an embarrassingly reactive move.
  - axod 17y ago
    It's better to do something properly than be first to market. Better to think through exactly how best to present the information to the users. http://bing.com/twitter http://bing.com/twitter is pretty ugly, and seems to not be working currently.
    - stanleydrew 17y ago
      And when I do a regular Bing search for, say, "ac milan," I'm not getting any real-time information, twitter-based or otherwise. Going to bing.com/twitter doesn't seem to be an improvement over just going to twitter.com to run my real-time search. Searching "ac milan" on Google does at least bring up their last Serie A result and a news story about how they came from behind to beat Madrid this afternoon. I'm pretty sure Google will find a good way to integrate real-time tweets and status updates into its regular search results.
      - diego 17y ago
        http://search.trendistic.com/ac-milan http://search.trendistic.com/ac-milan Or if you prefer a chart http://trendistic.com/milan/_24-hours http://trendistic.com/milan/_24-hours
- misuba 17y ago
  Google wasn't the first search engine, either.
  - volida 17y ago
    Neither Bing. Whatever that means.
    - misuba 17y ago
      The point's been better made elsewhere in the thread by now, but: what I mean is Google's always been a "best to market" company (to borrow a phrase from a friend) more than a "first to market" company. That certainly holds true for search itself, anyway; there are lots of exceptions within Google I can think of, but not lots that have been successful.
      - volida 17y ago
        I will not compare Google and Microsoft, but Microsoft has a long tradition of "coming late to the party and remain the last man standing" i.e. Google has a reason to worry in the long term if Microsoft decided to take search seriously.
- ottbot 17y ago
  I think only the announcement is hurried, I'm sure this has been in the works longer. The first company to release the feature won't matter much in the end, it's all about implementation and market share.. So I wouldn't call it "scrambling", more just a "why yes, we've thought of this too, and we're working on it"..
- axod 17y ago
  >> "scrambling to keep up with them these days." huh? Both announced they were going to use twitter data :/ It all depends who presents that information in a useful way - my money is on google reading their blog post. I hardly think google are 'scrambling to keep up with them'.
  - mrshoe 17y ago
    http://www.bing.com/twitter http://www.bing.com/twitter You're right that it still remains to be seen who puts the data to better use in the long term, though.
    - axod 17y ago
      FWIW that page looks absolutely horrible. I'd be ashamed if I had produced that. Being first to market is good, as long as the product doesn't make people recoil in horror. >> "Twitter search results are currently unavailable." Presumably it's not live yet, or else broken.
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        Same for me, wonder why that got you modded down. First to market is worth something, if you actually have a product. If you're only first to market with an announcement and an empty page you make yourself look a little foolish to jump the gun like that. I'm reasonably sure that when google announces their twitter search that it will at least work. Time will tell though.
- revorad 17y ago
  Did you try using Bing? I got: Twitter search results are currently unavailable.
  - the_real_r2d2 17y ago
    Not working for either. As many others I think that both (MS and Google) tried to win the other with lame PR and a broken application. The result is embarrassing for both.
    - thezilch 17y ago
      "[...] look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months." -GoogleBlog In other words, Google has yet to release an unpolished product, unlike MS who released what is already better done on Twitter itself.
- FreeRadical 17y ago
  This Microsoft Google war is incredible
jey 17y ago
In related news: Google jumps shark, announces vaporware.
antirez 17y ago
seems like twitter found a viable business model.
- thwarted 17y ago
  If Google agreed to pay twitter for this information, this may set a precedent that google would rather not have and that some publishers have been pushing for for a while, that Google pay people to have their content crawled.
  - misuba 17y ago
    This isn't a crawl deal; this is a deal for access to "the firehose," the realtime data of all public tweets that Twitter most certainly does not give away anymore.
    - thwarted 17y ago
      Doesn't matter. Google paying someone for access to content? Get in line!
the_real_r2d2 17y ago
Too early to really judge. Let's see how Bing's results from twitter are and then wait for Google. I think that a success will be how they will mine the results. Today from the search results in twitter-search are pretty lame and useless. If Bing or Google can reduce the noisy ratio an get useful results, then we will have a winner.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
ivankirigin 17y ago
I love that the title of this post rendered well on @ newsycombinator http://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/5053508006 http://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/5053508006
jwesley 17y ago
Bing.com/twitter is actually pretty cool for topics that have recently been in the news, especially the most shared links. On the other hand, if you search for anything that is not news oriented and is highly commercial, the results are super spammy.
chanux 17y ago
Googles idea seems more realistic. To search Twitter we got search.twitter.com. What we need is something organize and filter data in a nice (if you don't mind, rad) way.
pilif 17y ago
I kind of can't believe that both google and microsoft seem to have given in: We knew for quite some time (document leak this summer) that twitter was trying to make the search engines pay for access, but I would have hoped that Google and MS had more guts to not make such an agreement. There are various reasons for that: 1) it sets a bad precedence. Up until now, all (significant) content was accessible to the search engines without barrier and to index the web, aside of general algorithmic improvements, no changes in the way how spiders work were needed. 2) I don't see why Twitter should decide who can and who can't access the content I made publically available (by tweeting). This should be open to anybody requiring the data. 2) The information in twitter, frankly, does not need to be exposed into Google as it IMHO does not contain enough original information. Twitter is about conversations and links to stuff that is in the search engines anyways and the conversations don't really provide that much added value. 3) Twitter gains as much (or even more - see above) from Engines indexing them as the engines gain from being able to index Twitter. And lastly: In all other places of the internet that are indexed by search engines, I as the author can specify whether I want the content I create to be indexed or not (robots.txt, X-No-Archive-Headers and so on). As far as I can see, there is no way to make my conversations not appear in Google or any other place - and yes: Conversations. Tweets are not always real content, but often times just bits and pieces of conversations. In a perfect world: 1) there would be a standard on how to feed search engines (or any other interested party) with that content. 2) Twitter and other micro blogging services would adhere to said standard 3) Twitter and other micro blogging services would allow me as a user to chose whether my insignificant content is archived/indexed or not, preferably per tweet.

59 points by vulpes 17y ago

Microsoft unveils Bing Twitter search today and Google's hurried response is a blog post about how they've "reached an agreement" to include tweets in their search results. Ouch. Microsoft still has some fight in it yet, folks! It's not often that other companies are scrambling to keep up with them these days.

sgk284 17y ago
Perhaps it's more telling that Bing thought they had one up on Google, only to find out that Google was already there.
- mrshoe 17y ago
  That's an interesting way to spin it in Google's favor, but: 1) When MS signed a non-exclusive agreement with Twitter, they must have been 99% sure that Google would be in on the Twitter action as well (i.e. I doubt they ever thought they were one up on Google), and 2) The point is that Google is not already there. All they have to show for themselves is an agreement so far. (MS has http://www.bing.com/twitter http://www.bing.com/twitter up and running already.) Being first to market isn't everything, but I still think this is a noteworthy exception to the norm of recent years.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Being first to market is fine if it works. If you actually search for anything at all you get an error page.
  - misuba 17y ago
    Wow, everyone's signed non-exclusive agreements, no one's shipped anything stable... it's almost as if there's nothing to discuss.
dschobel 17y ago
I doubt this battle will be settled (or even affected) by the fact that MS was first to market with this feature. Who has the better integration and implementation is far more interesting.
seldo 17y ago
Agreed. This looks like an embarrassingly reactive move.
- axod 17y ago
  It's better to do something properly than be first to market. Better to think through exactly how best to present the information to the users. http://bing.com/twitter http://bing.com/twitter is pretty ugly, and seems to not be working currently.
  - stanleydrew 17y ago
    And when I do a regular Bing search for, say, "ac milan," I'm not getting any real-time information, twitter-based or otherwise. Going to bing.com/twitter doesn't seem to be an improvement over just going to twitter.com to run my real-time search. Searching "ac milan" on Google does at least bring up their last Serie A result and a news story about how they came from behind to beat Madrid this afternoon. I'm pretty sure Google will find a good way to integrate real-time tweets and status updates into its regular search results.
    - diego 17y ago
      http://search.trendistic.com/ac-milan http://search.trendistic.com/ac-milan Or if you prefer a chart http://trendistic.com/milan/_24-hours http://trendistic.com/milan/_24-hours
misuba 17y ago
Google wasn't the first search engine, either.
- volida 17y ago
  Neither Bing. Whatever that means.
  - misuba 17y ago
    The point's been better made elsewhere in the thread by now, but: what I mean is Google's always been a "best to market" company (to borrow a phrase from a friend) more than a "first to market" company. That certainly holds true for search itself, anyway; there are lots of exceptions within Google I can think of, but not lots that have been successful.
    - volida 17y ago
      I will not compare Google and Microsoft, but Microsoft has a long tradition of "coming late to the party and remain the last man standing" i.e. Google has a reason to worry in the long term if Microsoft decided to take search seriously.
ottbot 17y ago
I think only the announcement is hurried, I'm sure this has been in the works longer. The first company to release the feature won't matter much in the end, it's all about implementation and market share.. So I wouldn't call it "scrambling", more just a "why yes, we've thought of this too, and we're working on it"..
axod 17y ago
>> "scrambling to keep up with them these days." huh? Both announced they were going to use twitter data :/ It all depends who presents that information in a useful way - my money is on google reading their blog post. I hardly think google are 'scrambling to keep up with them'.
- mrshoe 17y ago
  http://www.bing.com/twitter http://www.bing.com/twitter You're right that it still remains to be seen who puts the data to better use in the long term, though.
  - axod 17y ago
    FWIW that page looks absolutely horrible. I'd be ashamed if I had produced that. Being first to market is good, as long as the product doesn't make people recoil in horror. >> "Twitter search results are currently unavailable." Presumably it's not live yet, or else broken.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Same for me, wonder why that got you modded down. First to market is worth something, if you actually have a product. If you're only first to market with an announcement and an empty page you make yourself look a little foolish to jump the gun like that. I'm reasonably sure that when google announces their twitter search that it will at least work. Time will tell though.
revorad 17y ago
Did you try using Bing? I got: Twitter search results are currently unavailable.
- the_real_r2d2 17y ago
  Not working for either. As many others I think that both (MS and Google) tried to win the other with lame PR and a broken application. The result is embarrassing for both.
  - thezilch 17y ago
    "[...] look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months." -GoogleBlog In other words, Google has yet to release an unpolished product, unlike MS who released what is already better done on Twitter itself.
FreeRadical 17y ago
This Microsoft Google war is incredible

jey 17y ago

In related news: Google jumps shark, announces vaporware.

antirez 17y ago

seems like twitter found a viable business model.

thwarted 17y ago
If Google agreed to pay twitter for this information, this may set a precedent that google would rather not have and that some publishers have been pushing for for a while, that Google pay people to have their content crawled.
- misuba 17y ago
  This isn't a crawl deal; this is a deal for access to "the firehose," the realtime data of all public tweets that Twitter most certainly does not give away anymore.
  - thwarted 17y ago
    Doesn't matter. Google paying someone for access to content? Get in line!

the_real_r2d2 17y ago

Too early to really judge. Let's see how Bing's results from twitter are and then wait for Google. I think that a success will be how they will mine the results. Today from the search results in twitter-search are pretty lame and useless. If Bing or Google can reduce the noisy ratio an get useful results, then we will have a winner.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

ivankirigin 17y ago

I love that the title of this post rendered well on @ newsycombinator http://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/5053508006 http://twitter.com/newsycombinator/status/5053508006

jwesley 17y ago

Bing.com/twitter is actually pretty cool for topics that have recently been in the news, especially the most shared links. On the other hand, if you search for anything that is not news oriented and is highly commercial, the results are super spammy.

chanux 17y ago

Googles idea seems more realistic. To search Twitter we got search.twitter.com. What we need is something organize and filter data in a nice (if you don't mind, rad) way.

pilif 17y ago

I kind of can't believe that both google and microsoft seem to have given in: We knew for quite some time (document leak this summer) that twitter was trying to make the search engines pay for access, but I would have hoped that Google and MS had more guts to not make such an agreement. There are various reasons for that: 1) it sets a bad precedence. Up until now, all (significant) content was accessible to the search engines without barrier and to index the web, aside of general algorithmic improvements, no changes in the way how spiders work were needed. 2) I don't see why Twitter should decide who can and who can't access the content I made publically available (by tweeting). This should be open to anybody requiring the data. 2) The information in twitter, frankly, does not need to be exposed into Google as it IMHO does not contain enough original information. Twitter is about conversations and links to stuff that is in the search engines anyways and the conversations don't really provide that much added value. 3) Twitter gains as much (or even more - see above) from Engines indexing them as the engines gain from being able to index Twitter. And lastly: In all other places of the internet that are indexed by search engines, I as the author can specify whether I want the content I create to be indexed or not (robots.txt, X-No-Archive-Headers and so on). As far as I can see, there is no way to make my conversations not appear in Google or any other place - and yes: Conversations. Tweets are not always real content, but often times just bits and pieces of conversations. In a perfect world: 1) there would be a standard on how to feed search engines (or any other interested party) with that content. 2) Twitter and other micro blogging services would adhere to said standard 3) Twitter and other micro blogging services would allow me as a user to chose whether my insignificant content is archived/indexed or not, preferably per tweet.