Kids, the search game is changing!
Yesterday we learned that Twitter search will undergo some dramatic changes soon.
CNET reports that Twitter VP of Operations Santosh Jayaram talked during a panel Wednesday about two additions coming to Twitter Search. Most notably, Jayaram said Twitter Search will soon index not only the text of Twitter posts but also the pages that Tweets link to. Some popular results will also be ranked based on a Tweeter's reputation.
via washington post
This means that the mountainous, incessant stream of "what are you doing now?" data will now get a lot richer because Twitter will be indexing the pages that we're all pointing to in our tweets. If you're a blogger, this is big as in "incredible opportunity." If you're a news organization, this is big as in "oh-oh, I'm being replaced!" If you're Google, this is big as in "They're doing what?"
If you're the creative type, you can now use Twitter Search to find amazing stuff, but, with this one change reported yesterday, you won't have to be all that creative anymore. If you think of Twitter as a news organization with millions of reporters on the ground who publish "pointers" to larger bodies of text, images, sound and video, you're starting to get the picture.
It's all those "feet on the ground" that makes Twitter Search a potential powerhouse. If people have been having trouble seeing the relevance of Twitter, this new feature of Search will change all that and give Twitter a potential new business model.
Speaking of business, I don't believe for a second that either Apple or Microsoft will be able to buy Twitter. If there was ever a thought that they would, yesterday's news should have put a stop to that sort of speculation.
