Legal Research

Twitter = Google-Killer?

That’s what these two posts from yesterday seem to be saying. And two weeks ago David Pogue of the NY Times posted The Twitter Experiment:

“Yesterday, I spoke at a conference in Las Vegas. The topic was Web 2.0, with all of its free-speech, global-collaboration ramifications. At one point, I figured that the best way to explain Twitter was to demonstrate it, live, on the big screen at the front of the ballroom. So I flipped out of PowerPoint and typed this to my Twitter followers: ‘I need a cure for hiccups… RIGHT NOW! Help?’ I hit Enter. I told the audience that we would start getting replies in 15 seconds, but it didn’t even take that long.”

David went on to list a sample of the answers, then observed:

“Has there ever been a wittier, smarter bunch (or a better collection of hiccup cures)? The audience and I were marveling and laughing at the same time. This was it: harnessing the power of the Web, the collective wisdom of strangers, in real time! The Twitterers of the world did not let us down. (And yes, I realize that this demo might not be as effective if you have, say, 20 followers instead of hundreds.)”

I dunno. I’m not a big fan of the whole wisdom of crowds thing. Here’s an example from Yahoo Answers that I like to use in class: How come there are Liberty Bell Symbols on some street signs in Philadelphia? The answer given by Lolabell is wrong. It’s been voted “best” — by one person. And it ranks as the #1 hit in a Google query for “street signs” “liberty bell”.  (Here’s the correct answer.)

I’d rather wait and get 1 correct answer than be instantly bombarded by a lot of junk. But maybe that’s the  old cranky librarian in me speaking.

I can see Twitter stealing some market share from Google — something Yahoo and Microsoft will never do. But replacing Google? Not likely.

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on February 09, 2009 (boomark / email).