In my previous post I decided to leave out the whole battle of words between Google+ and Twitter, and focus on it for a moment in just a quick OP-ED of my own in a separate post.
First, on Tuesday Google+ changed the Internet, and its competitors specifically Twitter called it “a bad day for the internet”. Of course they did. They have the most to lose from the move.
In a statement, Twitter complained that,
“people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users would suffer from not being able to quickly see tweets in search results.
“As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.”
Apparently Google used to have a paid deal to get real-time access to Twitter’s live “firehose” of tweets, and from 2009 until a year and a half later used to show these real-time results (tweets) in relevant search results.
In a statement to the site AllThingsD a Google spokesperson said:
“We want to help you find the most relevant information from your friends and social connections, no matter what site it’s on. However, Google does not have access to fully crawl the content on some sites, so it’s not possible for us to surface all that information. Ushering in the new era of social and private data search will take close cooperation, and we hope other sites participate so we can provide the best possible experience for our users.”
I personally always thought Twitter had more to lose from the existence and competition of Google+ than Facebook not because of the size of the network but the way its users use it. I find personally Twitter to be much better for spitting out random thoughts or thought-provoking quotes quickly from my phone. Google+ you can do that as well, only, it’s proven to be a way to find and follow more diverse groups of people with the same interest. So, as a result, I think personally Twitter is being a bit of a big whiny baby about this. They’re just mad because frankly, Google+ is a bigger threat to them now.
I think the recent post by Anthony Myers at International Business Times, says it all, as he points out:
Google is not the only one using social network data to fine-tune its search results. Microsoft’s Bing has been adding Facebook content to search since May. Google dominates the search landscape, however, so the spotlight is on them. Twitter has also chimed in on the new search model because they say it forces their content lower down in search results.
The tallest blade of grass is the one that gets cut by the lawnmower first. Or everybody shoots at the turkey with the tallest neck. Whatever it is. Also, as a famous king Solomon once said, one person’s side of the story seems right until you hear the other person’s (my paraphrase of Proverbs 18:17). Google responded with something like :
We are a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer (http://goo.gl/chKwi), and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions.
For those who may not know, Rel=nofollow is code that prevents search engines from following links. Apparently, according to Google, it was Twitter who ended their previous search agreement in July, implying Twitter wanted more money and that was the reason Google backed out. It seems subject to interpretation as to who ended what, but Google has made their public stance that it was Twitter. Sources close to Twitter are saying that it was indeed Twitter’s own doing that the deal ended.
Twitter Took A Risk Betting On Itself, and It’s Not Working Out in The End
A new post this afternoon from TechCrunch.com contributor Josh Consttine states:
Actually, I think backing out of the Google firehose deal was a courageous move for Twitter. It showed the company was willing to bet on continued growth and making Promoted Tweets, Accounts, and Trends work as a major revenue stream. Since these sponsored content types are artificially injected into Twitter Search results and the home page, they wouldn’t have appeared in Google Search.
However, like Dustin W. Stout, I’m calling it marketing hogwash. He points out:
“What Twitter is really mad about is that they realize that the one thing that rocketed them to success was their search– Google has now showed them who’s boss in the search game”.
Yep.
The big thing everybody seems to be forgetting, is Google, and Twitter, are BUSINESSES. In Twitter’s case, they’ve not necessarily found a decent revenue model, while Google has. And if social networking is going to help them increase, and they are going to use their number one asset, search, it makes sense they’ll go in the business direction they’ve gone in. Facebook did this with Bing, and nobody seemed to care. Now that Google, the juggernaut is doing it, people are slamming them.
If people don’t like that Google’s search results now show them ‘relevant’ content from their social network, they can always use Yahoo instead, or Bing who does the same thing with Facebook but nobody seems to be attacking them about it.
Google isn’t providing a public service. Should it be obligated to put Twitter’s pages above its own when people are clearly searching for them?
**Featured Picture copyright http://allthingsd.com/20120110/twitter-dumps-on-google-for-pushing-google-plus-in-search/.**
Other Articles and Opinions on This Topic:
Google Plus My World, by John Ellis
Google Fires Back at Twitter : You Took Yourself Out of Search by Sarah Kessler, of Mashable.com
Google To Twitter : You Quit Us, We Didn’t Quit You – by Matt Peckham, at Time’s Tech section.
Google+ in search: Google had no choice – by Stephen Shankland
