Twitter's Search Threat to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft

I thought it interesting that Google’s (GOOG) CEO would refer to Twitter as the poor man’s email but did not address the growing threat to Google’s search system from Twitter’s real time search ability.

I rarely use Twitter but use http://search.twitter.com/ quite often and I admit probably more than Google and the other search engines. The content is a lot fresher than what one would find on Google News or Yahoo! (YHOO) News. I suspect as the word gets out about the growing reliance on real time search, Twitter will take share from the other search engines.

I think this caught Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft (MSFT) off guard and I am sure all three are scrambling to find a solution to this growing threat to their business models. Twitter is essentially the answer for social search that Yahoo! and others have been seeking to master.

The search engines should look to partner with Twitter to organize the real time search data, index it, and make it searchable on their systems.

For now this is one to watch.

Comments

[Adrian D]

This is an interesting observation

One of the problems with blogs, is that a trying to find an interesting link seen three or four weeks ago may be close to impossible.

If Twitters search engine neatly indexes all twitter posts, as well as performing as a great search engine, they have a very powerful tool indeed.

2009 Mar 05 11:13 AM

[Mad Hedge Fund Trader]

This is well researched. Charlie Rose did an insightful interview with Marc Andreesen last week, who has one of the best high altitude views of the long term future of technology. This is the man who, at 22 co-authored Mosaic browser, which was used to create Netscape Navigator, and eventually Internet Explorer. He sees the recession creating a “tragic opportunity” that accelerates the migration of dying industries to the Internet like, radio, TV, DVD’s, music, newspapers, real estate, and banking. Every day the awesome power of the Internet to eat new industries grows, which is now populated by 1.5 billion users. His favorite game is the incredibly violent “Gears of War 2” which you should keep out of the hands of your teenagers. Venture capital start ups are not in as bad of shape as people say because they are usually funded with five years of cash flow, enough to get through a downturn. Google, YouTube, and Facebook were all developed during the last recession. The Internet is creating a far better educated and connected consumer than ever seen before. Twitter, where Andreesen is a director, is becoming a real time electronic nervous system for the planet. The same is happening with the world’s three billion video enabled cell phone users. He is also on the board of Facebook, with 175 million users, which is leaving at least a $1 billion a year in potential advertising revenues on the table. He is an angel investor in the social networking site LinkedIn, which now boasts 20 million resumes. All in all, it was a fascinating peak into the future.

2009 Mar 05 01:08 PM