I find the entire Twitter phenomena incredibly intriguing. At first, I didn’t get the point – why the heck would people ‘tweet’ (or said otherwise, what spurs people to constantly blurt out short thoughts and status updates to the world)? And if people are going to tweet, why do they need a dedicated platform for these short thought snipits? Why can’t they just use Facebook status updates (which in many ways already serves the purpose of sharing such short thoughts)?
And truth be told, I still don’t fully get it – what motivates an individual to tweet is still, in large part, beyond me.
That said, what has become clear is the awesome power that emerges on macro scale from the millions and millions of people tweeting little tweets. If (or more appropriately, when) an accurate, intelligent and effective mechanism for real-time tweet searching emerges, we will literally be able to tap into the pulse of human thought and activity. Of course, the more people using Twitter, the more reflective the thought stream represents that which is going on within the minds eye of the human collective.
In fact, this type of real-time search is close to reality. Twitter’s search is powered by Summize (an acquisition Twitter made last July) and it is now testing ways to integrate search more fundamentally with the entire Twitter experience.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/18/twitter-moving-to-make-real-time-search-more-central/
If successful, this will be a fascinating step in the evolution of human connectivity. Pretty cool stuff – and all said and done in less than 140 characters.
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