Wondering if we really need to see these tweets in real time on Google search results.... the quality of these tweets seems to be very low. Maybe Google should be filtering tweets.. Not sure how this is useful at all to someone searching Google for "Tiger Woods"
I think this will only increase twitter spam :(( Google is usually very very religious about their search result quality... not sure how this got through...
- Bindu Reddy
Exactly, the more you tweet, the better your chances are for a site hit
- sofarsoShawn
interesting. didn't even realize there's these kinds of google search results now. thanks for the heads up!
- See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
Yup, I am writing a bot that scrapes Google trends, extracts search terms and writes tweets every 2 minutes with those search terms :)
- Bindu Reddy
New SEO pioneering! I want in! & it's also not just Twitter, but also Jaiku, identi.ca Myspace, FriendFeed & Facebook. & Bing (except for FB & TW) won't be including them in their search results.
- sofarsoShawn
I the quality of all tweets seems to be very low.
- Gabe
Oh bleh. Just tried a search for "snow". The realtime results are very distracting. Let us opt out, or put it on the side somewhere.
- Laura Norvig
from iPod
It's good to bring more users to twitter though, as they keep getting twitter rubbed into their face. That being said I should try that search.
- Richard A.
Interesting. So you can try spam these services, and get a high position on Google immediately. But filtering... based on what? The usual filters work on authority which in turn often works on ratings, citations, backlinks etc., and these won't be real-time because people first have to see and digest the message in question in order to link, cite and rate it.
- Philipp Lenssen
It auto-updates and that is an interesting feature. That's something I could see some use for :-)
- Richard A.
On the spam and SEO topic. Don't you think it'd measure retweet strength. If a lot of people retweet a subject then the link would be more relevant/interesting than if just one person retweets. Sorry for going slightly off topic. As an aside do retweets move back up to the top of the search? Should try cop15 and see how it behaves.
- Richard A.
@Philipp: smart question (as usual). I guess that Google's rank/filter could be based not on the tweet, but on the tweeter: e.g. someone who has many followers is a good source, etc. E.g. Google too should (in this case) change its paradigm, switching from a "web of pages" to a "web of people".
- milivella
Google needs real time spam/foul language filter.
- ashish
from iPhone
Have they implemented safesearch for real time search?
- ashish
from iPhone
@Philipp You have nailed the issue :) It is really really difficult to get a good grip on "quality" if the information/data is real-time. I still can't really figure out what the motivation behind doing something like this on the Google main search results is.
- Bindu Reddy
Sometimes it is nice to see people giving their reactions to news or event in real time but I hope it improves overtime.
- ashish
from iPhone
Am I the only one here who is using Topsy http://www.topsy.com on a daily basis to cut through Twitter noise? Works like a charm. News recommender systems are the Next Big Thing.
- Sean McBride
Sean, I'm on twitter for the conversations :-). I looked at topsy and I'll have to play with it, see how I could have fun with it.
- Richard A.
This is difficult to explain without sounding creepy but... There is nothing as beautiful than a woman who has just showered, in her pajamas, still damp hair and no make up... It's just hard to... well... find or ask people other than Rachael to let me photograph them like this... I know, weird, but you know...
Now, rather than from a hard drive, imagine PS loading from an audio cassette tape - a whole truck load of them. You wouldn't need an animated GIF, you'd just need a GIF.
- Micah Wittman
Go get a cup of coffee while it's loading. Fly to Columbia for a cup.
- Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)
Adobe Reader also does that. One of the reasons why I use Foxit Reader for PDF's.
- Vishy
Vishy: Try Adobe Reader 9. They fixed that issue, it doesn't load all its crap on launch any more. Now it loads it on demand instead. Adobe Reader 8 did the slow load you're talking about.
- Otto
I think.. and i'm not sure here.. but I don't think it's supposed to be loading still after 3 days. Should I Force Quit? :D
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
from IM
I actually have very high hopes for solutions like Salmon (http://www.salmon-protocol.org/) to bring us back to the best of both worlds. Rich, detailed posts with topical comments on the original site, intermixed seamlessly with the discussions taking place on aggregators like FriendFeed and Facebook. It's possible -- we just need a little bit of tech to make it happen.
- DeWitt Clinton
Me too - I miss those days, and I worry Twitter has distracted us
- Jesse Stay
Some of my best relationships have been built by commenting on others' blogs - it still works even today, but now I guess it's more a secret than it was before.
- Jesse Stay
I'm hoping for a return to the usenet days, where I could follow a conservation from one client. Conservation is so fragmented since the blog era. Hopefully, this upstreaming of comments will allow a more integrated view and lower the probability of fragmentation.
- Ray Cromwell
Part of the problem is people simply taking less time to comment. There's a - relative - abundance of good content. Finding a good article is less special nowadays than it was some years ago. Less reason for a reader to engage with one specific author. There are other strong posts waiting for him in his reader, FriendFeed or Twitter stream.
- Meryn Stol
Imagine a world where people could follow blogs wherever the like (Reader, FriendFeed, on the original site, whatever) and all the comments made in each place would swim upstream and back out to where people were reading. We're super close. Would love to have FriendFeed be an early adopter of this.
- DeWitt Clinton
I think FriendFeed in part countervails that problem by making commenting so easy, and by "nudging" towards short comments, more intuitive responses. I think the old days of thoughtful responses in the comment section are not coming back. A true thoughtful response can be made into a blog post by itself.
- Meryn Stol
I need to bring mine back. Almost a year gone by with no posts. I just got frustrated with my blogging software around the same time Twitter took off. But every time I tweet a little piece of me dies. I need to fix that.
- DeWitt Clinton
My main point is that I think new technology, better integration between blogs and aggregators and such can only do so much for us.
- Meryn Stol
A counterpoint, at least some new technology has brought more people together than ever before (plenty of examples right here).
- DeWitt Clinton
Oh I don't doubt that tech can bring us together, it's just that it's bringing us together in a different way than before. While twitter - imo - hurts thoughtful discussion, it has brought us "ambient intimacy". FriendFeed also have given rise to a new *kind* of conversation.
- Meryn Stol
The comments "swim upstream" idea is nice in theory, but there's the pesky problem of threading when a side conversation develops in one of the outposts. I suppose sticking with the @name convention helps a bit for sorting things out ...
- Laura Norvig
from iPod
I love the phrase "ambient intimacy", Meryn. But I partly disagree -- Twitter has brought us a Society of the Spectacle (in the Guy Debord sense). Nothing intimate about that.
- DeWitt Clinton
DeWitt, hmm allright, maybe I'm romanticizing Twitter somewhat. FYI: The term ambient intimacy was originally coined by Leisa Reichelt: http://www.disambiguity.com/ambient... - kind of must read essay I guess.
- Meryn Stol
I still have an active blog, but most comments seem to be coming from facebook.
- Piaw Na
No question it has changed. Salmon is a cool option, which I like a lot, but you can't undo the trend. Many folks believe that retweeting, bookmarking and Google Reader sharing is enough. I recognize I do this a lot, but I do try to participate in as many community conversations as there are, wherever they are.
- Louis Gray
Salmon will be a very valuable solution. By allowing people to add comments in the environment they feel most comfortable with (and propagating them) I think the depth of conversation can/will increase.
- Chris Myles
Box.net looks pretty nice... I hate that my huge-email-attachment-work-around is unfashionable. I will change immediately Jeremy.
- SAM
Yes, but I use it ti zip files instead of stuffing them, since it's what comes with OS X.
- MaryB, BrandingBroadOfFF
from iPhone
Heh I used to work for them. Aladdin Systems
- Rodfather
SAM - I didn't mean to pull a Scoble. I got sick and tired of my yousendit e-mail going into spam folders, so my reaction came from a lingering frustration with the architecture and a real love of box.net.
- Jeremy (cropmarks)
I have Stuffit 12 deluxe on both of my macs and it's the default app that deals with archived files....
- Kamala Whitaker
People in the graphic arts, I'd bet. I imagine some of their Mac OS 9 installs are going to be around for a while yet. And how else are you going to ship those resource forks and type/creator codes around?
- Clayton Wheeler
Hehehe @ Jeremy's "pull a Scoble"... actually much appreciated... box.net looks awesome.
- SAM
Wow. I'm surprised that many people still use it when zip (and on OS X, bzip2) are so standard.
- Akiva Moskovitz
My understanding is that resource forks and type/creator codes have been deprecated for a while, but I'm sure there are still a ton of apps that rely on them. I think tar on OS X can handle them, though.
- Victor Ganata
Haven't seen it in years. The Unarchiver (a great open source utility) handles anything I've come across that won't work in the default Mac OS X utility (BOMArchiveHelper.app)
- LogEx
I used to have about 15 copies of that and 20 more of SimpleText... back in the old days.
- Louis Gray
More seriously, you have to take in account the "2 years late" France problem ... I'm afraid there is nothing to do to fix that ... ;-)
- Stanislas Jourdan
Perhaps, Stanislaus, but is Scoble on MiniTel? ;)
- John Craft
it spells market opportunity to me. Do you realize that late comers to a market/game will have the advantage of starting at the current level, and not from scratch?
- Juan Pablo
I assume you meant 'in' France :) In India too most professionals are on LinkedIn rather than Twitter.
- Brijesh
they r on at least one social network ie: facebook or linkedin or their popular local network for sure. thats from all my friend's couch-surfers from all over
- polou/indigo_bow
As to being surprised, one word: Miopia. You, me, and most people :)
- Micah Wittman
I think this is a good thing. Twitter sucks.
- Alex Scoble
Yep, if I was an entrepreneur, I would shun Twitter as being completely unusable for telling a story and having a conversation with ANYONE. It's unusable for anyone but marketers and an entrepreneur needs to be more than that, IMO.
- Alex Scoble
Alex: SOCK it to 'EM - POW! ~ Why would any entrepreneur (outside&inside Tech) waste their time with twitter - there's no meaningful gain for time spent
- sofarsoShawn
Alex: that's lame too. Ever hear of posting a URL to a blog inside Twitter? That lets you do whatever you want with Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
sorry...is twitter back up again...?
- Simon Hicks
It depends who you are trying to reach - Twitter isn't *that* big an audience
- Jesse Stay
Now, if they're not on Facebook that's a different story
- Jesse Stay
Jesse: every single tech executive, influential, blogger, and VC I've asked today is on Twitter. That's who I want to reach. I don't care about your mom. As I look around the room EVERYONE is on Twitter.
- Robert Scoble
I'm friends with a ton of VCs on Facebook, and I learn a ton more about them there than I do on Twitter
- Jesse Stay
I should show you my executives list on Facebook - I get to talk to them on a personal level there
- Jesse Stay
I just friended Louis Gray's Mom and get to learn about his Twins on Facebook, all while building a stronger relationship with him
- Jesse Stay
I can pitch things to Maryam and get her to convince you to do stuff ;-)
- Jesse Stay
And that only touches the surface of what you can do with my Mom on Facebook ;-) (although she doesn't friend anyone but her direct relatives)
- Jesse Stay
I think that's an unfair statement Robert. Indirectly you are implying that Twitter is the definitive method of reaching out which is incorrect. Also, I think Twitter is a major distraction and personally I think any Entrepreneur worth his salt would not be wasting time on twitter but working on his idea.
- Parth Awasthi
Parth - I'm an entrepreneur worth my salt (IMHO). I'm on twitter. It's a place to make connections much faster than you can in a room of other business folks, or secluded away working on your idea. Take your best efforts at networking and multiply them by an order of magnitude or two and that's the impact twitter can have on your reach and connections.
- Brian Schwartz
Jesse - your stats are completely ignoring API calls and most everyone who uses twitter uses a 3rd party tool.
- Brian Schwartz
Brian, fine - compare API calls. Want me to show stats on the number of Facebook API developers vs. Twitter API developers?
- Jesse Stay
Jesse what's app just won the award for best iphone app for 2009? Tweetie.
- Brian Schwartz
OneForty's tracking just over 2,000 Twitter apps - they're probably the most complete directory
- Jesse Stay
Sorry, forgot friendfeed uses enter to actually post. Tweetie was one of the most popular and used apps for the iphone two years in a row. Facebook and twitter are different web applications. Farmville et al don't appear on twitter.
- Brian Schwartz
The Twitter development mailing list has almost 7,000 members
- Jesse Stay
The Facebook developer forum has just over 45,000 members
- Jesse Stay
How many of those are game developers? You don't need 45,000 developers to developer twitter clients.
- Brian Schwartz
Actually, according to their developer conference from 2008 the number of registered developers on their platform exceeds 400,000
- Jesse Stay
In 2008 Facebook also announced over 33,000 apps - that was just last year
- Jesse Stay
Twitter has plenty of game developers as well - that has nothing to do with this conversation - this is about *everyone* being on Twitter, or supposedly that being the case
- Jesse Stay
how many of them are business apps? How many do you actually use? I am active on both and think they have different business models and purposes. Robert's point is valid. If you're in web / tech you should be on twitter and that is correct statement.
- Brian Schwartz
Brian, again, I think that depends on who you're trying to connect with. Most of the important people I need to connect with are on Facebook as well as Twitter, and I can be much more effective on Facebook than I can Twitter.
- Jesse Stay
Jesse yes you can do that on facebook. However, not everyone is willing to accept Facebook friend requests from strangers (which I personally don't do) and once their account hits 5000 friends, they have no choice but to transition new "friends" to a fanpage, where the interaction ca be less personal & engaging than twitter. Most people are willing to receive and respond to @ replies in twitter, even prominent people in web / tech space.
- Brian Schwartz
you gotta go where your customers are. If that is twitter - so be it. If not, don't waste your time on there.
- Simon Hicks
The people I connect with on Facebook aren't strangers. That's the thing - I build much more intimate relationships on Facebook. Not everyone follows back on Twitter either - you have the same problem there. Fan Pages aren't less personal either - each fan Page has to be fan'd by real people, and conversations occur in more than 140 characters, all with real people. They are much more intimate.
- Jesse Stay
The advantage Twitter has is it's easy to build an audience fast - it takes more work on Facebook. With Twitter, because the follow is part of the API it's a cinch to figure out ways to game the system and grow an audience really quick. I would then recommend transitioning that audience to Facebook where you can build even stronger relationships.
- Jesse Stay
But with the much harder audience building on Facebook it also brings a much more intimate experience, and much higher quality relationships.
- Jesse Stay
To you. This is a matter of opinion. I build relationships with people on twitter (similar to how you do on facebook) several of which I'm now friends with in real life.
- Brian Schwartz
Brian, as do I - I have had much greater success on Facebook though, where most of my relationships also become friends. FriendFeed has similar qualities due to the size of the network here.
- Jesse Stay
But you have a twitter account, I see it on your friendfeed profile, Robert is commenting about people who don't, I agree with him, that is lame. If you are in the industry (and attending LeWeb) you should at least have an account.
- Brian Schwartz
My point though is that Robert's statement too is a matter of opinion - you don't need a Twitter account to be successful as an entrepreneur. You can be on Facebook and be just as successful, if not more successful without a Twitter account.
- Jesse Stay
Use the tool that gets the best results for you. I personally don't follow more than 1k people in twitter. I don't want to. But at least make an attempt to try the tools before you rule them out.
- Brian Schwartz
I should add that e-mail also makes a great communication mechanism, as do lunch appointments and in-person meetings, as does a blog. Twitter isn't 100% necessary. It's a tool like anything else.
- Jesse Stay
Get outside the US and you'll have strange faces if you mention Twitter (although I know many places in the US you get the same, even amongst executives and VCs)
- Jesse Stay
We are not disagreeing (other than a preference of tool) but being in web industry you should have a profile on all of these tools and understand what they do.
- Brian Schwartz
I'm not even really stating a preference - I'm just trying to show that there are many other options out there that would make Robert's statement false.
- Jesse Stay
I'm also surprised you get strange faces from anyone in the US about twitter considering it's Q rating in the media. I'm in the midwest (flyover country to most of the rest of the US) and our social media club meetings get between 60 - 100 people per month. You can't just ignore twitter.
- Brian Schwartz
I spoke to an audience of 1,000 a couple months ago and only an eighth (if even that) of the room rose their hands when I asked them who was on Twitter. Look at the numbers - Twitter is still very small, regardless of what your Social Media Club says.
- Jesse Stay
1000 of whom? Web folks? Brick and mortar businesses owners? I speak to marketing crowds and the majority of them are on twitter (if not personally, at least the brands they represent).
- Brian Schwartz
Again, Robert is at LeWeb. This should be an informed audience.
- Brian Schwartz
Brian, software developers and entrepreneurs, including several executives
- Jesse Stay
Brian, Robert is also in France, where I am willing to bet not many of those VCs or Executives use Twitter.
- Jesse Stay
The theme of this years LeWeb is "real time web" should be a big enough of a hint what that audience would be discussing... I'm off to bed though, it's 2:36 local time for me. Cheers.
- Brian Schwartz
of course, but Twitter's not necessary if you live in France, unless you want to connect with Silicon Valley VCs or Executives, which even in that case there are other means of interacting with them.
- Jesse Stay
As far as I can observe, the french community of twitter is mostly crowded by journalists, bloggers, and social media enthousiasts in general. There are also plenty of entrepreneurs, but i think that as Jesse mentionned facebook is still the first place to be.
- Stanislas Jourdan
About LinkedIn, it is popular among geeks population, but viadeo (http://www.viadeo.com) is much more mainstream (probably because it is a French company ;-)
- Stanislas Jourdan
And since we are looking down on people for not having a Twitter account, maybe you could dig deeper for us Robert: How many entrepreneurs did you meet that didn't have a iPhone/Smart Phone? How many checked their email directly and didn't have a personal assistant filter it for them? How many listed their cell phone on their business card? How many used voice communication as thier...
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- Johnny Worthington
Jesse Stays outlines it pretty inarguabley, your lists are great in a false conscious, augmented reality, but with real VC's & with real business, we don't operate through a tweet deck
- sofarsoShawn