Twitter Search Queries Up 33%, 24 Billion Searches Per Month (SearchEngineLand) – that’s pretty huge! Just a few months ago they were up to 11 billion. What a leap. Why? Well because Twitter isn’t going away; Google’s bringing it a lot more visibility, and it’s so easy when you give it a chance. It’s a human run search engine. Whether you go to search.twitter.com, or search through any one of Twitter API powered apps or sites, you’re going to quickly find fresh results.
Last week at a friend’s party, a drunkard mumbled, “Twitter is for idiots. Nobody cares what you’re doing!” Well, I don’t get offended that easily. But I wasn’t about to bother explaining – he clearly enjoyed his obstinance. But what I could have told him is Twitter is only what you make of it. It’s a connecting tool between friends (like a status update on Facebook), or a news aggregator (follow those who post nothing but up to the minute news). Maybe it’s an entertainment tool? I know I like to follow people that make me laugh every day. Maybe it’s a customer service tool (@ComcastCares). I practically IM my coworkers with DMs using ChromeBird.
Granted, the 24 billion searches are probably from Twitter power users, of which I am one. I routinely search for content and links via Twitter. I think Twitter is one of the most useful social properties on the web, hands down. You get used to the 120 (oops – 140… thanks Jack… I was asleep at the wheel there) characters, I promise. Besides, we all have short attention spans anyway.
Are you a power user too? Follow me @bill_sebald
Update:
So the word now is that these searches are inflated. Apparently sporadic API calls from all the apps (like my ChromeBird) that ping the search command are included in this announced total. Well, yeah… technically that’s a search, but really Twitter? A little deceptive to put the number out there without that caveat. You still have an incredible achievement to be proud of.
Popularity: 39% [?]
It has begun.
If you didn’t hear, Bing and Yahoo have merged to a degree. Bing search will begin powering Yahoo.com’s search function. This merge also includes paid search (which is the real monetary motivator for this merger). The transition timelines are now out there.
Apparently it should be done between August and September.
Read more at Search Engine Roundtable.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Hey all – been taking a vacation from the blog for a while, sorting out some personal issues. Wanted to bring up a cool meta search engine that I’ve been getting back into. It’s not new, but it’s a cool way to search when your old standby’s aren’t doing the job.
A meta-search engine is a search engine that sends user requests to several other search engines and/or databases and aggregates the results into …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_search_engine
Check Out Surfwax – Meta Search Engine
Popularity: unranked [?]
As a search engine junkie, I’m always pulling for the little guy with a good idea. I love competition in the marketplace, especially when they introduce some new ideas.
Yahoo and MSN are very concerned about the future of their properties, despite aggressive roadmap announcements. They’re prime targets for a Cuil-type overtaking. Google may rule, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I break their mindshare (or mind control? Hmm…) more often in the future. I’ll happily switch to non-traditional search engines or platform engines – that is, if I find them effective. Unique results speak for themselves.
Here’s a few engines I found – few of which I use (I admit). But maybe the next winner comes from this list. What do you think? Shopping, meta, social, and vertical engines abound…
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Popularity: 6% [?]
My wife IM’d me today and says, “did you hear about the new Google?”. Seriously. So Cuil is making the rounds in a big way today, with a flare gun. I’ve been finding posts on mainstream sites like CNN, and even MSN (Pulitzer would be proud!), it’s one hell of a launch when the headline is Ex-Googlers launch Cuil. With a 120 billion page index out of the gate, Cuil (pronounced ‘cool’) is really risking something with this huge grand scale ‘first impression’. So far, it doesn’t look like the gamble is paying off in the search blogosphere. Reviews have been poor to lukewarm (my favorite so far being over at Search Engine Land).
I found some bugs. Not sure if it was due to an influx of new traffic, but a lot of searches didn’t resolve around 11:30am (eastern). The “About Cuil” link didn’t work, either, but is restored now.
Also, for having more indexed pages than Google, I found it very thin in variety. In a blended search world, I appreciate this engines layout, but it really does lack media blending. Pages that seemed to rank well for their ‘relevancy’, as is the selling-point of this engine, didn’t seem to be all that relevant. I do very much like the Explore By Category feature, and look forward to that improving (it was my favorite feature of the SearchMe.com engine, but I’m not sure Cuil is quite as diverse here).
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Popularity: unranked [?]