Dec 03, 2009

Real Time Search – the reason it has to take over/shuffle in/bump the queue/merge with "old" search parameters

Real time search bothers me.
It’s full of crap. And spam. Already. (just enter your main keyword to see how much bullshit is being posted right now by arseholes at search.twitter.com – Twitter have got to update their algorithm soon).
But, tonight I wanted to watch BBC iPlayer (as usual).
It was “down for maintenance”.
Rare.
And Annoying.
I love the BBC (and think it is woefully undercharged).
It was down for maintenance again for the next two hours (and counting)..
Frustrated, I googled “iplayer down” and got this:
iPlayer Down search
Then, clicking on the most relevant search result, I got this:
Picture 21
If you’re not getting the profound nature of this for your business I’ll try not to patronise everyone in the room: this is a 2 year old web page showing up on a google search for a problem that is happening NOW.
Frustrating? Go back to Netscape in 1998. Those were the days!
Utterly useless, and why you should start paying some serious attention to twitter for your business right now (even if you don’t “get” it yet).
Merging relevancy and immediacy to negate the flaws of both ideas is the true challenge of the search era.
I’ve published a twitter guide for business on here somewhere. Take a look around if you want a copy (no sales pitch – most of it’s free)

Share
Mark
The founder of Attwood Digital, Mark is a digital marketing veteran having been working online since before the dotcom boom. He created the world's first online skip hire service in 2003, has created multiple online courses, lectured on digital marketing and even written a book on the subject. He is also an ICO advisor and crypto-enthusiast.
6 comments
  1. Myles
    December 4, 2009

    My company already jumped onto the twitter bandwagon. we didn’t get many followers at first but now we are getting lots.

    Reply
  2. Shyam Kapur
    December 4, 2009

    You are absolutely right. I wish more people would see the light like you have. The “noise” problem in real-time stream can be tamed. Check out TipTop at http://FeelTipTop.com for an awesome solution. You will not use anything else ever again.

    Reply
  3. Julie Anne
    December 10, 2009

    I can’t imagine how real time search will be able to mix with traditional. They seem like two different animals. On the one hand, you’ve got quick fix, instant answers in 140 characters. Maybe useful, maybe not. But on the other hand, you’ve got well thought out, useful answers that were designed to be complete and thorough.
    Why should longer, older, more useful articles be bumped by real time Tweets? It ain’t fair!

    Reply
  4. Justin Freid
    December 11, 2009

    I believe it is just a matter of time before Google and other real time search sites refine their algorithm to present better results. Google seems to be spreading themselves quite thin these days and missing on quite a few i.e. Google Wave and Social Search. At the same time you have to consider the amount of information these social networks produce and why Google needs to index and present it to their searchers, they just have a lot of work to clean it up.

    Reply
  5. Justin Freid
    March 19, 2010

    So it looks as Google hasn’t done much to update their algorithm. I am still finding social search results full of clutter and spam.

    Reply
  6. Jesse Kingland
    July 14, 2011

    Actually Google was importing Twitter results until they relationship ended this past week. Now? no more tweets in results!

    Reply
Write a Comment