Google searches resulting in Tweets?!
I noticed something new in my search results a few days ago : Twitter Updates. So after a little digging I found that back in October Google struck a deal with Twitter and the new feature went live in early December. I am torn about this decision from Google. The Google page-rank algorithm is tried and true providing some of the most relevant searches available. Twitter, on the other hand, can go from professionals, to corporations, to anyone who has an email address and too much time on their hands. I don’t, as a user, want to see someones tweets about what HotMamma72 is drinking at Starbucks when I am looking for actual information. For instance, if I search “Who is Lady Gaga?” the results are photos, the singers official webpage, latest news, the Wikipedia entry and then this:
Although this may not be a typical example, I cant determine what benefit this is giving the consumer. Twitter results don’t come up in every search, so it may be still in Beta testing, but I have serious doubts on this new partnership. Until Twitter feeds can be ranked by users for quality, such as Google’s current page ranking systems does, I think they should rethink the usefulness of this new feed.
