The Real Time Search Dilemma: Consciousness Versus Memory

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The Real Time Search Dilemma: Consciousness Versus Memory

by Erick Schonfeld on June 26, 2009

One of the hottest areas of search right now is real time search, which attempts to find results based on what is happening right now. Twitter’s search engine fast becoming one of the key ways to navigate the service and discover what people are thinking about any subject at any given moment. Facebook is testing out ways to let you search your personal stream . Google is waking up to the challenge as well (Larry Page is particularly concerned with keeping up).

Every week, it seems, a new startup launches tackling real time search from a different angle. ( Collecta , One Riot , Scoopler , Topsy , Almost.at , Tweetmeme , CrowdEye , Omgili , to name a few). They are trying to apply real time search to all the different streams of information flowing over the Internet right now: Twitter, Facebook feeds, Digg submissions, blog comments, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, YouTube uploads, shared links on bit.ly and elsewhere. The list keeps getting longer every day.

There is something about human nature which makes us want to prioritize information by how recent it is, and that is the fundamental appeal of real time search. The difference between real time ...

Original URL

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/26/the-real-time-search-dilemma-consciousness-versus-memory/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/26/the-real-time-search-dilemma-consciousness-versus-memory/