I think part of it is due to the fact that Google has greater access to a broader audience. Not everyone will search Twitter for "Donald Trump" but they will certainly search Google - so Google is providing a way for the candidates to take advantage of what is already happening probably millions of times every day.
I'd argue further that Twitter has done close to nothing to make their search a useful feature in the first place, which is why people aren't searching Twitter with "Donald Trump". If I was Twitter, this would be very worrying. All they've managed to do so far is "firehose search", which is only useful for realtime events unfolding. They probably should have been thinking about "topic search" and "person search" for a while now...
Yeah, the inability to search your Twitter feed is simply infuriating. This is an embarrassingly parallel problem, so the issue isn't scale slowing the development of Search down. Twitter just doesn't give a shit.
What exactly do you wish Twitter had done? Allow longer posts? That's not going to have the big positive impact some people think it will. Hosting longer posts on Twitter isn't going to bring more users to Twitter or keep more people more engaged with it.
This is a big deal because Google is leveraging their dominant position in search to coerce people into using it as a social platform.
This is a bit of a snide remark on my part, but maybe the fact that that Dorsey is trying to run two separate companies at the same time may explain some of Twitters aimlessness.
I'm referring to the postings with the photo and the checkmark and the "On Google" text, not the ones pulled from news sources, like the ones for "trump issues"
I'm thrilled to report that uBlock Origin completely strips out this spam on the search results page. I was worried that it might take some time to filter out this noise from the search results page, but apparently not!
No content is hidden from my side[1] -- I am using default filter lists. Poster must have some custom filters, or using some other 3rd-party filter list which causes this. The logger would tell why content is blocked on his side.
Whoa, I've never seen this privacy reminder box before! Must be an EU-specific thing to try and dissuade them from getting skinned alive by EU privacy laws.
It could be that this is massive, and has little or nothing to do with the US presidential election. They're going to try to force their way into social by grafting social media posts onto the one thing basically everyone uses - the search page.
Or it could be a desire to provide maximally relevant search results. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Dr. Freud.
Not-a-disclaimer: I'm spending the year at Google (as a visiting scientist; I don't own stock and have no financial interest in its success). You might be surprised by how strong the desire is to do the right thing by users and make it easy for them to find what they're looking for. There's not always an ulterior motive -- happy searchers made Google what it is today.
This doesn't seem like such a bad idea. I don't care about most of the stuff on Twitter. But, if I'm searching for something and a Tweet-like "post" exists that is relevant to what I'm searching for, I might like that.
Wow, when Google makes this available to businesses they're going to be able to charge whatever they want and every business is going to have to use it. This is not good.
Is that so different than the advertising space that they currently sell? Everyone that has posted screenshots of the new feature is using ad-blocking, so maybe we just don't even think about the ads any more?
Yeah seriously, they keep putting out these products that no one ever wants to use. Like that Google Maps thing or that Chrome browser or whatever. Geez.
If they could build a social network, I would probably enjoy it being part of search. Show me links people I follow have tweeted that are related... seems like that would be a killer app.
Could be an interesting way for candidates to get in front of third-party spin. When you Google "Bernie Sanders" you could be greeted with rich content from the Sanders campaign explaining his positions, rather than links to hit pieces and other info-detritus.
Of course, either way you're getting somebody's propaganda.
My concern is then the composition of the rich content when Google offers itself as the platform. "Welcome, to our podium, Canditate A. We've already constructed the stage and backdrop, too, with these accompanying articles, images, and layout."
It sounds, initially, like Google's role is very passive, but I think control over what surrounds the podium has the potential to be very active. "Hey, Candidate B has better lighting!"
Google as active medium becomes the active message? Thoughts?
This is the Google version of Twitter's little 'verified' checkmarks, just for whole web pages instead of tweets. The presidential election is actually a great place to roll out that kind of service given him much domain squatting goes on (e.g. http://www.tedcruz.com), but it's clearly of general applicability. If it takes off, it makes Google the place to go to for establishing a page as the 'official' version.
This seems like a bad idea in that it allows the powerful to completely control the messages that are affiliated with them. Suppose celebrity x does wrong to a regular citizen, and they have Google posts at their disposal while Jane Smith does not.
On the other hand, this seems like something Rick Santorum might have been grateful for.
I can imagine the popular, rich and powerful to love it. Imagine avoiding all the abuse, threats, snide remarks, witty rebuttals, imaginative memes and uncomfortable truths that Twitter gives them as a platform. People want something more sanitized as a platform. It's quite an interesting development.
This seems like a terrible idea. If given access you can now completely control the primary message regarding search terms of yourself. Kinda defeats the purpose of using search as discovery, no?
without the opposing views, trolls, abuse, other points of view, memes, snide remarks, outrage, support and morsels of truth and without a Safety Council, perhaps, yes like Twitter.
Google already does something a little like this with Google plus pages. Let's say someone google's for my website name, and I have a Google plus page associated with it. If I have recently posted new content on my Google plus page, this post is displayed in the top right hand side of the Google search results.
I wonder if these new posts will appear in the same place or actually embedded in the main results.
Is Google building a version of Facebook news feed in Google Now?! For many people Facebook is for getting updates from their news source and use less social material
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 177 ms ] threadI'd argue further that Twitter has done close to nothing to make their search a useful feature in the first place, which is why people aren't searching Twitter with "Donald Trump". If I was Twitter, this would be very worrying. All they've managed to do so far is "firehose search", which is only useful for realtime events unfolding. They probably should have been thinking about "topic search" and "person search" for a while now...
FTFY
This is a big deal because Google is leveraging their dominant position in search to coerce people into using it as a social platform.
"As a presidential candidate I want a platform that every one of my constituents can use to follow my ramblings..."
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hillary+issues
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bernie+issues
I'm referring to the postings with the photo and the checkmark and the "On Google" text, not the ones pulled from news sources, like the ones for "trump issues"
Screen cap from mobile: http://i.imgur.com/X1M5YZn.jpg
[1] http://i.imgur.com/2M1D6Uj.png
Not-a-disclaimer: I'm spending the year at Google (as a visiting scientist; I don't own stock and have no financial interest in its success). You might be surprised by how strong the desire is to do the right thing by users and make it easy for them to find what they're looking for. There's not always an ulterior motive -- happy searchers made Google what it is today.
1600 Mystic John Ray, later repurposed by Karl Marx.
This is just a new ad unit.
Wasn't that the strategy with Google Plus when it came out?
(Found via a Google search sadly enough.)
[0] http://i.imgur.com/mkTaMJo.png
Except no, they don't.
Of course, either way you're getting somebody's propaganda.
It sounds, initially, like Google's role is very passive, but I think control over what surrounds the podium has the potential to be very active. "Hey, Candidate B has better lighting!"
Google as active medium becomes the active message? Thoughts?
Thanks, Google, but I need more space, not less, from this madness
On the other hand, this seems like something Rick Santorum might have been grateful for.
So yes, like Twitter. ..if you only use it to share Medium posts.
I wonder if these new posts will appear in the same place or actually embedded in the main results.