Twitter Search

Among other things at the Web 2.0 expo last week, Twitter Search was a hot topic. The micro-blog functionality of the “social experiment” is not just for updating the world on your lunch menu or broadcasting PR messages anymore. On second thought, it is, but it’s also so much more. Twitter provides a window into real-time search like never before. Once national news stories started breaking on Twitter, the search gurus began to realize the potential of the powerful tool that was emerging.

True, many conversations on Twitter are perhaps better left floating in the cloud and don’t hold much relevance beyond the small groups of individuals having them. But, there are larger conversations going on, and they are happening instantly. Have a widely known product? It’s probably being talked about on Twitter. Like to keep tabs on trends in fashion, food, technology, travel or more? Definitely on Twitter. Need to monitor conversations in a specific location? You bet. Plus there are plenty of apps out there now that let you search and manage your twitter account with ease: TweetDeck, Twhirl, Twitterific, TwitterLocal…etc.

Whatever you plug into Google on any given day, if immediate conversations for the same topics are relevant to you, then so is Twitter. It will be interesting to see how Twitter Search expands and becomes more common in our Web 2.0 world. We’ll be watching.