Why Google should want Twitter: Currency
Why Google should want Twitter: Currency
Here’s a good clue as to why Google should be interested in Twitter. It’s not just search. It’s currency. Google isn’t good at currency. It needs content to ferment; it needs links and clicks to collect so PageRank can determine its value.
But in this report, Google chief economist Hal Varian and analyst Hyunyoung Choi demonstrate that Google search trends are good at predicting the present. That is, rather than waiting weeks or even a month to get aggregated figures on auto, retail, home, or travel sales to be collected and analyzed and released, Google search patterns can give a good indication of sales now.
Note that to do that, Google’s value is not in its analysis of content but in its collection of our behavior, which is faster.
Of course, Twitter is even faster, even more immediate. It collects what we’re doing and talking and thinking of doing right now.
George Orwell should be rolling over in his grave about now!
Tags: George Orwell, Google, PageRank, Technology news, Twitter
