Vikrama Dhiman's Blog

Thanks to the @jaaogre group for the opportunity to be a part of the Tweetup at Zenzi Mills, Lower Parel last Saturday.

This article, by the Jaagore team, on the Jaagore Tweetup pretty much captures the schedule and minutes well. The article by @arcoploc was also nicely written. Here is the link: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_get-set-tweet-for-a-social-cause_1430178

The dead tree format coverage is always special, especially if you are covered. So, here it is me, DNA, Sunday, August 28, 2010:

Yahoo [along with Hotmail, Amazon and eBay] is the grand old company of Internet. I associate plenty of memories with Yahoo. Some of these are:

1. My first email account was with Yahoo. I still remember how proud and privileged I felt going to the Internet Lab in erstwhile Computer Block of my college to check my email [not that there were many from cousins, friends and relatives who were yet sleeping on the idea of Internet - but the feeling of entering my username and password was always brilliant]. Remember, this was much before email became routine and boring. One of my prized possessions is my Yahoo password :)
2. My first brush with social media was Yahoo Groups. I still remember the active conversations on the Linux Community Group way back in 2000. And then I joined Scrum Development Yahoo Group in 2006. That was my introduction to All things Agile. Yahoo Groups is probably the most secure mode of community and bonding on the Internet. If only Yahoo was more aggressive in its PR and innovation [Twitter should have happened as a natural 2.0 step for Yahoo Groups - much before it happened indepentently].
3. My first personalized web page was [guess, guess - ok! it is not that hard to guess] with Geocities. Great idea and everyone I knew had one [or more] of them at Geocities. No one seemed to mind the gaudy advertisements or 80ish templates. You had not arrived if you were not on Geocities. Like with Yahoo Groups [which by the way is still pretty active], the lack of innovation failed the wonderful idea. Blogging, micro-blogging, Friendfeed et al should have happened at Geocities much before it did elsewhere [at least they should have caught up with it]. When you think that Yahoo also had Yahoo profiles and has acquired Flickr, not brucing it up, is again very very surprising.
4. Storing my files online meant using my briefcase - Yahoo Briefcase. 30 MB meant a lot of space and you could even create folders. If you wanted more space, you could always buy it. That was before Rapidshare's and MegaUpload's of the world came up with probably viable economic models.
5. My Online Address Book always meant Yahoo Email - for a long time. And then LinkedIn happened :(

It sometimes feels sad that it took Facebook and Twitter to shake Google out of its slumber and complacency. With Bing and Apple showing signs of strengthening, I just hope and pray that Yahoo can think like one company and come up with innovative, user centric and usable cross linked features. That would do a world of good for Internet.

Recently, Google announced that they are integrating Twitter feeds in Google search results. This comes close on the heels of Bing announcing something similar. Apparently, these two deals have made Twitter profitable, at least in the short term. I digested this news passively [passive in the times of social media means, no active tweeting, no Facebook discussions and no blog posts or commenting - I did retweet one Tweet though]. I misjudged the impact of this combination. I realized this when one of my colleagues, Amit Klein, tweeted this Monday [December 28, 2009] morning that there have been reports of firing at Oberoi Mall. My first reaction was to go to Google. Yup, I closed Tweet Deck and opened Google. It was instantaneous. Almost, as if my mind is tuned to Google to "find something". The search results were interesting. Have a look below:

It was Twitter ruling the roost. There was no sign of any major news agency here. This must have been within 15 minutes of the firing. I waited. I thought, let me try in 10 minutes. The search results after 10 minutes were as below:

The firing was a mock drill. We were consuming the news live as it was happening via Twitter (and Google).

It does not take rocket science to understand why Google integrated Twitter feed in its search results. Twitter might have been the news source, but we consumed it on Google. Google's own Wave has been a massive flop show. Also, most of us consume Twitter feeds via clients like TweetDeck or Seesmic. To find a trending topic, we have to go to another website [which could be Twitter - where it is difficult to get into trending topic list anyways because of the traffic it attracts, or one of the many which use Twitter feeds to show breaking news]. Right now, most of us go to Google to "find something". Google wants to ensure this continues to happen especially for people who are connected to Internet 24*7. It seems like Google is acknowledging Twitter as the world's best source of breaking news and also discussions on whatever is hot right now. By integrating Twitter feeds in Google search results itself, it is increasing the quality of search results and keeping its position as primary source of search results in tact. In typical Google fashion, the Twitter feed is updated real time and is done aesthetically [something Twitter is not known for].

The benefit for Google is clearer to understand. What about Twitter? Why would they agree to the deal? The money is probably a good enough reason [there must be pressure on Twitter to prove their revenue model]. Also, just like Google is probably late in trying to venture into micro-blogging, Twitter is nowhere close to Google in search. Google can quickly combine blog posts, news articles, web pages, images, videos and what all. Twitter can compile only from Twitter. Also, as we will see in the next paragraph, search in itself is a huge product and getting involved in it could make you loose focus on other aspects. As long as the news is being created on Twitter, Twitter does not probably have to worry. If it stops getting circulated via Twitter and discussions dry up, it won't probably be because of Google [unless Google wave takes off - which right now looks highly unlikely].

Right now, the problems seem to be at Google's end. For instance, right now, they are using Twitter only for "real time search". Hence, if I do a search on "Oberoi Mall Firing" now, Twitter is there but not as a real time search. You could see some pages where Twitter feeds found their way. In addition, finding Twitter results can be slightly cumbersome. First you have to search and then next to Web click on "Show Options" and then click on updates. Also, if someone typed something other than Oberoi Mall Firing [something like Firing in Mumbai], you will not get any search results. Only some of the obstacles, Google needs to overcome.