Blind Five Year Old

Twitter search is a great feature but it in no way threatens Google’s dominance in search.

Recency does not equal relevance

The major flaw of using Twitter as a search engine is that recent tweets on a subject do not equal relevance on that subject. This should be obvious but lets do a few searches to illustrate the point. I’ll use searches that appeared in the top 100 from the Google Hot Trends list at some point on February 15, 2009.

Yosemite Camping

Which of the results best satisfies the query? Without question it’s Google. Let’s try another.

Daytona 500 Pace Car

In this instance both provide the answer. The Daytona 500 Pace Car is a 2010 Chevy Camaro. The Google result tells me it’s black and gold and gives me plenty of authority sites to visit.

Twitter on the other hand doesn’t provide this level of detail. In addition, two of the five results are from Mahalo and a third is from kinougo. More on ‘him’ later. For now lets try one last search.

Crayola Factory

Hands down Google satisfies this query better than Twitter. The only link available is, again, from our friend kinougo. So who is kinougo?

Essentially auto generated Tweets based on hot searches. But where do they lead?

Look at that! An API based link farm with Google AdSense as the revenue source. That looks … awful!

Twitter would have been a near complete bust if it were not for Mahalo and kinougo. Yet, these sites are simply exploiting Twitter search, not contributing to it in a natural way. I doubt the user experience on these clicks would reinforce the idea that Twitter was the place to search. Probably the exact opposite.

Recency works only for hyper real-time events: earthquakes, Presidential debates and conferences to name a few. (Sidenote: There’s this other site called FriendFeed which actually did a bang up job on real-time commentary on the Presidential debates.)

Authority is nonexistent

What makes anyone believe that the latest 5 or 10 tweets on a subject are at all authoritative! Twitter has no mechanism to determine what is the best result for a given query other than the Tweets from their users in a very short time span. Do you trust the random users of Twitter that much? I don’t and neither does Google.

The Google algorithm tries to present the most authoritative, the most right, the most useful results, not just johnny-come-lately blog posts and certainly not some 140 character missive. They might not always get it right, but they’re trying … hard.

Duplication is a problem

Twitter doesn’t handle duplicate results, opening itself up for SPAM both real and unintentional. Even for the hyper real-time events how many times do you need to see the same quote over and over again?

Twitter is not a Google competitor

Relevance, authority and duplication all ensure that Twitter is not, and likely never will be, a Google competitor. At best Twitter could provide supplemental information to a real search engine. Twitter is the crawl at the bottom of a cable news channel.

“I just ate a mango” isn’t going to disrupt the search world.

Is it ethical to submit your own content to social sites?

Should you Digg your own blog post? Should you bookmark it on Delicious? How about Stumbling it too? (If you can.)

My answer? Yes.

If you’re not confident enough to promote your own content, why would others do it for you? Sure, in a perfect world you want others to get the ball rolling but inertia remains high. In this instance, don’t rely on the kindness of strangers.

Remember, you’re not trying to game the system. You simply want to give your content the best chance to find an audience. Would you exclude your content from being indexed by Google? Heck no!

Would you refrain from Tweeting about a new blog post or exclude your own blog from your FriendFeed? Of course not!

Again, what happens to your content once it is submitted is out of your control. It could sit there in a corner doing nothing or it might find an audience who likes and shares it with friends. But it’s up to you to ensure it’s there in the first place.

Submitting versus spamming

Moderation in all things. Don’t go overboard. If you’re cranking out a lot of content, not all of it might be worthy of being submitted to every site. Pick your spots. Learn what works best on Reddit versus Digg. Figure out what content is most interesting to those using StumbleUpon. For the best marketing advice for linkedin automation for messaging , people can always check it out here!

Your personal brand will suffer if you are labeled a spammer, so don’t over submit your content.

Self submission increases content quality

Before you submit your own content, ask yourself if it is really worth submitting. If you hesitate that should tell you something. Again, you must be confident, and proud, of your content to submit it to social sites.

Use self submission as a filter to make your content better. It’ll help you deliver more value to readers and increase the chances of natural social media adoption.

No one likes a know it all

For best results you should participate on these sites. Not only will you better understand them but you can help and promote others. After all, these are social sites. Take as little as 15 minutes out of each day to promote recent posts by your favorite blogs or newly discovered websites.

Only promoting your own content makes you look selfish, vain, condescending and insecure all at the same time. But never promoting your own content might make you invisible.

Recently there has been a slew of well intentioned people offering their opinions on how to improve FriendFeed. From Robert Scoble to Louis Gray to Joshua Porter, they’ve all had interesting ideas which led to a massive FriendFeed meta discussion. Finally, FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit, in his nice way, came out and told everyone to just chill out.

What Paul and the FriendFeed crew really need to do is invent a time machine so the impatient early adopter crowd can skip the slow but natural adoption curve of a product.

I’m not saying FriendFeed is perfect. There are a lot of good suggestions out there and I could offer my own but will save that for another day.

It’s the speed in which people are willing to claim failure which is troubling. And the mindset of many seems to be that FriendFeed is broken. That it doesn’t work like Twitter. That it’s too complicated. That it doesn’t work like Google Reader. That there’s too much information. That it sucks traffic away from blogs. That the new user experience is broken and scaring people off. The the signal to noise ratio is out of whack. That it needs Track to survive. On and on and on.

It may take some time for people to ‘get’ FriendFeed. Even those using it will endlessly debate exactly what it is and why they find it useful. And to be honest I’m doing the same thing right now. So instead of lamenting about what it isn’t I’m going to talk about what FriendFeed does right and what it means to me (YMMV).

FriendFeed connects me to people right away

Unlike other services, I can subscribe or connect to a group of people immediately upon signing up. My friends don’t have to be FriendFeed users. (Most still aren’t.)  And as soon as I subscribe to a few of these recommended people I get to see activity and lots of it. Instant gratification!

The arguments around who is being recommended (e.g. – ‘A-List’ individuals) seem to have died down. ‘A-List’ users help in a few ways. It shows that the service is being used by influential people and some of their feeds provide great activity that instantly showcase the value of FriendFeed.

Could the recommended list be better? Maybe. But it terms of showcasing what FriendFeed delivers, I think it does that extremely well.

Friend of a Friend helps me find new people

This is perhaps the best feature on FriendFeed because you get to see things you might not have otherwise. It’s a passive way of delivering exploratory information to users. It’s using your friends as the filter! And isn’t this the next thing? Getting down to networks we trust? Why let an algorithm try to determine what is relevant when you can use humans instead?

Removing the Friend of a Friend feature would cause FriendFeed to wither and die as more users simply sealed themselves into their own tiny echo chambers. While the intent of these folks may be to reduce the ‘noise’ they wind up drowning themselves out. (Think of it as getting the microphone too close to the speaker, causing the high-pitched feedback screech that makes your ears bleed.)

In the end, entropy will take over. With nothing new entering that universe, you’ll find less and less value.

Hide reduces ‘noise’

Use the hide feature. It’s your friend. Maybe your best friend. You might argue that the act of hiding shows that there is too much noise. To some extent that is true but lets think about this in a different way. Do you like every episode of a certain TV show? Do you like every book an author puts out? Do you agree with everything your favorite blogger posts? Heck, do you even like everything that your spouse or significant other likes?

Not only are we different but we’re multi-faceted. That’s not a bad thing! The hide feature stops you from throwing out the baby with the bath water. Hide can be used surgically to remove a specific service, without likes or comments, from an individual person. Or you can hide a whole service if you find it is never contributing any value.

Blocking defeats spammers

I don’t block people who actually contribute to discussions even if I don’t agree with their views. However, those who are abusive or fully interrupt the value of my stream will be blocked. The real benefit of blocking on FriendFeed is that it is viral. The community is quick to identify spammers and in short order, minutes sometimes, spammers are rendered invisible or removed.

This is not the case on other networks and has become an increasing problem on Twitter.

Duplicate detection was a huge improvement

When we talk about noise, one of my biggest complaints had been the fact that the same story could show up multiple times in your feed at the same time. That was noise. Sure enough, FriendFeed was able to solve this issue.

There’s a subtle difference here. Duplicative information provides little to no extra value. (All it tells me is that the item is popular.) In my opinion, that is the definition of noise in this context.

Information deemed less relevant or random in nature is not noise but instead simply a different vector of data – a piece of the puzzle that may or may not add value.

Random does not mean irrelevant

Lets stay with the puzzle theme for a second because it speaks to the new ways in which I think people will understand their world. FriendFeed provides a very rich stream of information from people you value. (I should add here that FriendFeed is not the place to friend blindly. Be selective.)

Thinking that you can put all the pieces of the puzzle together all at once isn’t going to happen. You’re going to get the edges done first and then you might work on a particular area that has a distinctive color. Then you’ll work out from there. It is not a linear process.

So, you may pick up a piece and find that it doesn’t fit anywhere. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong in the puzzle, it simply means it’s not yet ready to fit. So what you perceive as noise simply might be a piece that doesn’t yet fit in your puzzle. But if you throw it away, you might never complete the puzzle.

The random nature of your feed (often perceived as noise) may actually be something to preserve. Jonathan Mendez has a great post regarding the optimization of randomness. There are a few parts from his post that I believe can be leveraged into the discussion of noise versus signal.

The sense of discovery fulfills a basic human need. We achieve further fulfillment from enlightening others to our discoveries. … Randomness helps us discover. It can create interest. It can lead to intent.

He uses music as one of his examples though he misses what I feel is the most obvious one – the shuffle feature on iPods.

How many times do you achieve an epiphany about something you’re working on by doing something else or talking to someone outside of your industry?

FriendFeed is a massive information hub

FriendFeed is the 90s science-fiction version of the data flow that Gibson and Stephenson among others talked about.

It will take time for people to figure out exactly how they can plug in to this new resource. But I believe more and more will change their behavior to best take advantage of this font of information. Lets remember, there were plenty of people who thought it was overwhelming to be reachable all the time (aka – cell phones.)

But our attitudes changed and we adapted our behavior.

Comments provide insight

FriendFeed is a great place for discussions. The comments are often where you’ll find some of the best thinking and writing. FriendFeed is a massive information hub because it is annotated by others to provide greater context and analysis. Comments allow the crowd sourcing of knowledge that transform mere data into information.

Informational osmosis is a reality

In college I made sure that I attended my classes because I found that even if I sat there barely awake, the information being discussed all sunk in on some level. Weeks later cramming for a test I could access some of this information that had seeped into my brain … simply by being there and letting the words wash over me.

Embrace the ‘noise’ and let your brain find the patterns. Give FriendFeed time and see what finally emerges.

Perhaps the biggest improvement to FriendFeed is … us.

Here’s a simple way to get your Twitter replies delivered to you via RSS.

• From your Twitter home page, scroll down to the bottom and click on Search
• Search for your replies using @[your username] (for me that would be @ajkohn)
• Select the ‘Feed for this query’ link on the top right hand side of the search results page

That’s it. Your Twitter replies will now be delivered to you via RSS in your favorite reader.

Has Twitter gone mainstream? Sure it’s gaining in popularity, but mainstream? I think not. Mainstream is defined as follows:

The prevailing current of thought, influence, or activity. The people or things representing the most common or generally accepted ideas and styles in a society, art form, etc.

At most you could quantify Twitter as mainstream for a subgroup of Internet users. But why quibble when I have real data. Here are the results of a Vizu Answers poll I conducted on December 29, 2008 across 286 websites.

The results show that 1 in 5 use Twitter while a full half of respondents didn’t even recognize Twitter.

Twitter is not mainstream. So, what is it? I think it makes sense to measure Twitter using the Everett Rogers Diffusion of Innovation.

Rogers proposes that adopters of any new innovation or idea can be categorized as innovators (2.5%), early adopters (13.5%), early majority (34%), late majority (34%) and laggards (16%), based on the mathematically-based Bell curve.

Using this measurement and the poll data (20%) we see that Twitter is entering the Early Majority, which is likely why the buzz quotient for Twitter has increased of late. Twitter will need to make its way through the Early Majority to the Late Majority before it truly becomes mainstream.

Of course you could argue the merits of the data. But this was an Internet poll which means it likely under reports Laggards. You might also point to the figures recently released in Hubspot’s State of the Twittersphere.

The growth is impressive. But I’d point out that Twitter users often maintain more than one account. Here’s an unscientific FriendFeed poll that, at the time of writing, indicates that Twitter users maintain an average of 1.5 accounts.

So lets wait to annoint Twitter as mainstream and instead see how it evolves and innovates in 2009.

Now is the time when bloggers go on the record with their thoughts for the year ahead. Place your bets! Stake your claim! Here’s mine.

Facebook Becomes A Portal

Realizing that social media and advertising is like oil and water, Facebook repositions itself as a portal leveraging Microsoft’s Live Search as the revenue model. This also might result in the potential acquisition of Netvibes to provide a more robust offering to compete with Yahoo!

Identity Systems Fail

Confused about the difference between OpenID, Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, users throw up their hands and decide not to use any of the above.

Video Advertising Succeeds

The adoption of video is surging faster than many expected. Longer formats and better quality will bring even more eyeballs who will grudgingly accept advertising.

Microformats Go Mainstream

Why they aren’t already is shocking. Nevertheless, in 2009 we’ll see microformats become a standard and search results will become far more robust as a result.

Banner CTR Becomes Obsolete

Brands will finally realize that measuring success by click through rate (CTR) isn’t working. Measurement ‘beyond clicks’ will be the new yardstick, whether that’s through new brand advertising measurement services like Vizu or through monitoring services like Brandwatch and Trackur among a gaggle of others.

RSS Adoption Spikes

Someone will (finally) figure out how to market RSS to ‘the masses’ who will grasp the sublime benefits of having content come to you instead of the other way around.

Kindle 2.0 Flops

Amid a weak economy Amazon releases the newest version of Kindle. Other readers have gained ground where Kindle has not and at the core Kindle is a solution without a problem.

Google Search Share Stalls

The move by Facebook (see above) causes a radical change in the search landscape. Microsoft passes Yahoo! for second place and talks about a Microsoft Yahoo merger are (unbearably) reignited.

FriendFeed Surpasses Twitter

FriendFeed adoption increases at an accelerated pace due to quick innovation, uncluttered design and an interface that lends itself to communication.

Someone ‘Dies’

Users reach social media overload and VCs get even more nervous about revenue creating social media shrinkage. In this instance ‘Dying’ means a company goes under or is purchased for a song. My short list includes Plurk, Twitter, Digg and Seesmic. This isn’t a reflection of the people or product but the inability to truly reach the mainstream with a service that has a profit model.

There are plenty of other things that I believe will happen in 2009, but they seem more obvious or an extension of current trends. Instead I tried to be a bit more bold, at least on a few of my predictions.

We’ll check in this time next year to see how I fared. In the meantime, feel free to comment and provide your feedback and reaction to my predictions.

It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest Twitter fan. But yesterday, we had to take my daughter to the ER to get IV fluids. She couldn’t keep anything down, even water, and having been born with just one kidney we’re always vigilant about her hydration.

During this gut-wrenching time (there’s no comparison to worrying about the health of your child), Twitter let me keep my family and friends updated without stepping out of the room or disturbing anyone. It served a very valuable function, something it hadn’t done for me previously. Oh, Twitter had been interesting, informative and sometimes fun, but never valuable.

Twitter is increasingly being used as a news service – whether it’s reports of an earthquake, opinions on Presidential debates or first-hand accounts from the Mumbai attacks. In this instance, I was simply using Twitter for my own personal crisis. Micronews.

I wasn’t expecting a dialog, though I got some very kind replies. (Thank you!) And that might be the reason why Twitter continues to do well. The expectation of dialog or replies is still low. When you shout into a canyon you’re pleasantly surprised when you hear someone, other than your own echo, reply.

Maybe this isn’t the big epiphany for you as it was for me. But it makes me think that Twitter can be more than just a promotional megaphone or “I just ate a mango” navel gazing. I also thought of new features I might want, like the ability to Tweet to a subset of my followers.

Hopefully my followers on both Twitter and FriendFeed don’t mind my tangent into personal chatter. (No Qwitters yet.) And I’m certainly hoping I don’t have to take advantage of this particular use of Twitter any time soon. But it’s nice to know it’s there.

Thank you Twitter.

Does TweetSense make sense? And more importantly would it make cents?

Twits have been up in arms with the introduction of Twitter based ad networks like twitAD and Magpie. Magpie in particular drew a lot of coverage with notables like Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins at Mashable and Michael Arrington at TechCrunch weighing in on the topic. Many claimed that it was outright spam that had no place on Twitter. Lots of huffing and stamping of feet. They’d unfollow anyone they saw using such a service!

I’m not opposed to this type of monetization if it’s implemented well.

The fact is, are you really going to notice? If you’re that attached to Twitter you probably use the service quite a bit. You follow a lot of people. Many are very active. The odds that you’re going to see an advertising tweet are quite low and if you did it would be gone from your existence in a matter of minutes.

Advertising tweets would be very ephemeral.

So, that begs the question: will these Twitter based ad networks be effective? Will people click on them enough to make it a viable advertising platform? They will if it’s done right.

Spare me the ‘nobody clicks on those things’ type of indignation. There’s this company called Google. They have these products called AdWords and AdSense. Both seem to be doing just fine even though many say they’ve never clicked on either type of ad unit.

The implementation will be paramount. They’ll fail if the ads become too frequent, overwhelming tweet streams for users. Essentially, if the noise drowns out the signal, it will fail. They’ll also fail if the ad content isn’t relevant. Viagra ad tweets mixed in with a discussion about Motrin Moms isn’t going fly.

The frequency and context of advertising tweets are critical to the success of this type of ad network. So, who is in the best position to pull this off?

Twitter!

Twitter knows your tweet velocity. Twitter has the ability to create dynamic tags for users based on keyword frequency analysis. As such, it is best placed to deliver timely and relevant tweets to their users. By doing so it would also remove the potential abuse of the service by those seeking personal, monetary gain.

Block the third party ad networks! With Twitter at the controls, the odds of success (for both users, advertisers and Twitter) go up, way up.

Twitter does need a revenue model. So why not TweetSense?

I’m still trying to find how to get the most out of Twitter. (I get far more from FriendFeed.) But here’s an easy example of how not to use Twitter.

The level of noise on Twitter seems high. Ditto the number who feel it’s an obligation to follow back. Or perhaps this is just what increased usage gets you?