Twitter has held the attention of the web like I haven’t seen anything do in a long time. While the premise is simple — briefly answer the question, “What are you doing?” — the benefits are numerous. Some users share the minutia of their day. Others promote projects they’re working on, while others connect with far-flung friends, seek help to puzzling questions or simply “eavesdrop” on the informal thoughts of people they admire.
You may use Twitter for any or none of these purposes. Today, I’ll talk about using Twitter as a search engine, and its advantages over Google.
Easy, Dave. You’re insane. Google is a search engine. Twitter is, well … Twitter. It’s ridiculous to make such a comparison.
While Google is the 300lb gorilla in the world of internet search, it isn’t the definitive answer to finding things on the web. Here’s an example.
Recently, I was working on a WordPress project and got stuck. So, I opened a new browser window, navigated to Google, entered the best keywords I could think of and executed the search.
Instantly, I was presented with tens of thousands of results. The first four or five were helpful, but didn’t offer the answer I was looking for. Those results suggested others, and soon fifteen minutes passed and I wasn’t much closer to finishing my project. In fact, no progress had been made that whole time.
So, I posed the question to my Twitter followers; “How do I [do this] in WordPress?” Then it happened — I was offered exactly the answer I was looking for in less than sixty seconds. In that instance, Twitter beat Google hands down. Here’s what I’ve discovered to be the advantages of Twitter over Google.
1. It doesn’t interrupt my workflow
When I execute a search on Google — and scan the results — I do so at the cost of productivity on my project. I must stop what I’m doing, open a new window and start digging. Often I find what I want in a minute or two. Sometimes I don’t. Either way, I’ve halted progress on my project. Even time spent on brief searches adds up.
When I “execute a search” via Twitter, there’s almost no interruption in my workflow. The time it takes me to bring Twitterrific to the foreground, type my question (more on that later) and hit the return key is about ten seconds. After that, I can return to my project and continue working.
2. High quality results
Meanwhile, the “Twitter Elves” (my followers) read my query and those who have the answer reply. The “weeding through” that is such a time-consuming part of using Google takes care of itself. Not EVERYONE replies, including those who don’t have answer. Only those who are absolutely confident in their answer click the reply button. I get the right answer (or darn close to it) only. Consider the myriad of irrelevant results of a Google search.
3. I can pose a question in real English
The old joke about using the Yellow Pages was, “First I’ve got to guess what they’ve decided to call this.” Will I find the number for a house painter under “Painter,” “Contractors,” “General Contractors” or what?
Setting up a Google search is the same sort of guessing game. The first step is to imagine which magical words will produce the intended results. Often it takes several attempts.
Twitter eliminates this bit of sorcery. Instead of typing, “WordPress, pages, hidden, menu bar, side bar” and crossing my fingers, I simply ask, “Does anyone know an easy way to hide certain pages from a WordPress sidebar?” That’s plain old English and it elicited exactly the result I was after.
4. Results based on knowledge, not SEO skills
One’s ability to optimize a web page for search engines has nothing to do with his or her ability to put useful content on that page. Anyone can tag, keyword and otherwise tweak a page so that a search engine will notice it readily. The content on that page may be crap, but Google sees it!
Twitter-generated results come from the knowledge and experience of the hundreds of people who follow me. I can tap into their minds in real time, which is a benefit over the static pages that Google serves.
The folks at Mahalo get it, kind of. Human beings generate their search results, but even then I’m viewing what the author of that results page decided to include. I can’t speak to him/her directly and get an answer as quickly as he can type.
Just try it. You’ll be surprised with what happens.
