This blog is totally off the dome, and while I’m afraid to say it, may not be the most factual. That said, I’m still not going to research all the information.
“And why, Jason, won’t you research information for your blog?”
I’ll tell you why, rhetorical question, because I can’t handle searching Google when it indexes Twitter feeds! True story. I started to write this month’s installment of the Absolute Truth and needed to nab a few quick facts to support my argument. The hunt for one statistic turned into a 90 minute fruitless venture to locate a knowledge needle in a haystack of Twitter opinions.
I’m sorry, but I don’t search the Internet to learn more about people’s 140 character opinions – the grammar alone makes me angry. I search the Internet to find relevant information efficiently. I don’t think I’m alone in this. More than a decade ago, Google revolutionized the way people look for information on the Web by developing a way to help a person find the most relevant website to his or her search query.
During this little episode, the most relevant information must have been found in people’s Twitter reactions. Most of these tweets were archived on another site, and that makes it even more annoying because the site content with that particular tweet was totally unrelated to what I searched for.
This could be bad news in the future. We encourage our clients to invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and rightfully we should. Our clients have excellent products and services that should be shared on the Web. But it will be an even more uphill battle to rank if our valuable, end-user-centric content gets buried by frivolous message boards and Twitter feeds.
I certainly hope that piggy-backing on Google is not Twitter’s way of finally monetizing its service. Twitter is a powerful social networking tool that provides real value to millions of people. Google is still the most widely used and, in my opinion, most valuable search engine around. But its cataloguing of microblog banter will diminish the utility on which it has built its empire.
For the first time, I finally heeded Bing’s commercial message and tried to let its “decision engine” alleviate my “search overload.” The result? More message boards. We’re screwed.