The Future Of Search: Is Twitter The Chosen One? | SearchFuel

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The Future Of Search: Is Twitter The Chosen One?

This post was written by Chris Copeland and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, March 13, 2009

Over the past three months it has become in vogue to discuss the future of search in one word — Twitter. With real-time, consumer-driven micro-blogging, Twitter has suddenly become what the next generation of search is to be. I started to discuss this topic in a column a few months ago , but as the buzz keeps getting louder, it seems to be a good time to revisit and debate the merits of the noise and the potential for both Twitter and the crowd sourcing of search to become the future of the space. In doing this, I’ll serve up one way Twitter might get at living up to its hype. (Note: From this point forward I’ll use Twitter as the example, to save the extra typing of “or another like service.”)

The Challenges

In exploring whether Twitter has the ability to become a viable alternative, let’s look at the issues it must overcome. The most glaring to me is the role that Google plays in the public consciousness. Google is a trusted advisor, a repository of information, a question and click away. And while it’s easy to debate the ease of finding information and the user’s dependence on the algorithm to place everything in proper order (compared to the 20th century equivalent, the encyclopedia), it’s a vast leap forward.

And that is the first challenge for Twitter: it leaves the parsing in the hands of the consumer. You ask the question and have to determine, based on your network, who you trust more, and the validity of the answer. Twitter is challenged in this regard because currently the options for finding answers ...

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http://www.searchfuel.com/2009/03/the-future-of-search-is-twitter-the-chosen-one/

http://www.searchfuel.com/2009/03/the-future-of-search-is-twitter-the-chosen-one/