Useful Twitter searches on Twitter

• near:orangecounty free
• near:orangecounty job
• near:orangecounty lds
• near:orangecounty opening
• near:orangecounty need
• near:orangecounty pr -su.pr
• “to apply” opening
• message looking for near:california
• PR looking for near:california
• PR looking for near:texas
• #tworco
• #entrypr
• djgpr (I can use this to track links using my “Tweet it!” link)
• @DavidJGarcia -RT (Find out who’s talking to or about your friends)
• “up again” OR “is down” gmail
• traffic slow near:losangeles within:10mi

Useful Twitter searches on Google

• PR “orange county” intitle:”on twitter” site:twitter.com
• “bio * corporate communications” intitle:”on twitter” site:twitter.com

Useful Twitter searches on Topsy

• news [hour]
• times [hour]
• CNN [week]

Also, in case you don’t know: Twitter has an advanced search page: http://search.twitter.com/advanced.

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Like it? Tweet it: Tools & Tech: 21 Useful Twitter Searches – http://djgpr.com/21

The contest is about a week old, and it’s running for about three more weeks. So far, it hasn’t gotten much attention (just over 200 followers). That may change, but if you’ve got a great idea and some spare creativity, you just might be able to win that TV.

Here are a couple of the match-ups that I’ve been playing around with:

Philips VS real life: which looks better?

Philips VS politicians, time & evil

It’s a fact: companies who actively market during this recession can come out of it ahead. As the recovery happens, do you want to lead the pack or get left behind, struggling to keep up? Your communications plan now will make the difference.

Whether you need to reduce your internal load or want an inexpensive way to ramp up your efforts, I’m now available as a freelance communicator. For a low hourly or project rate, I will:

• Write and edit press releases, blog articles, newsletters, and other content.

• Develop multimedia materials, such as podcasts, DVDs and web videos.

• Implement social media campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

• Craft a communications strategy to help you take full advantage of your opportunities.

To discuss how to get the most out of your limited resources, just give me a call.

There’s no obligation: I’m happy to discuss your goals and ideas at no charge. If there’s a good match, we’ll strike a deal. If I can’t do your project, I’ll help you find someone who can.

I look forward to talking with you!

But a recent experience finally convinced me that–in certain cases–there’s a better alternative.

Instead of the vast array of information Google uses to index and rank pages, Topsy.com currently uses only one: tweets. This leads to some specific strengths and weaknesses. And if you understand them, you’ll know when a search can benefit from Topsy and when you’re better off sticking with Google.

Topsy is the better choice:

• When you’re looking for ideas.
• When you need a recommendation.
• When you want to crowd-source, but don’t have access to the right crowd.
• When you’re curious about current conversations.
• When you want to know what others are using.

Google is the better choice:

• When you’re looking for a specific piece of information.
• When you need an obscure tidbit.
• When you want to get something in a hurry, and you know how to find it.
• When you don’t want to sort through the bias of current conversations.
• When it’s important to find something that’s built trust online over time.

I recently did a massive overhaul of my online presence, and I wanted a new theme for my blog. So I did an experiment: I searched for “wordpress theme” on both Google and Topsy. First Google:

As you can see, Google did a great job listing collections of themes. The problem? I’ve seen all the collections. I’ve spent a lot of time pouring over them. I didn’t need a collection; I needed a recommendation. Enter Topsy:

Now I have a variety of resources: whatever people liked enough to share with their networks and described using the words “WordPress Theme”. The first result is not a collection of themes–it’s a specific theme that lots of people recommended. Other results included several articles that helped me decide what I wanted in a theme. Then, on the second page, result #11:

Forty-nine times, someone has recommended this resource. After checking it out and modifying it, it’s what I ending up using.

In this example, Topsy provided a better way to find what I was looking for. Of course, it has some potential disadvantages:

• It’s biased toward sources that cater to the Twittersphere.
• It’s limited to things people are posting on Twitter. If no one’s posted something, it won’t show up.
• Tweets by influential users count more than those by the rest of us. Good or bad–you decide.
• It may still be possible to game the system.

Topsy’s co-founder, Gary Iwatani, had the following response to these concerns. Since he was kind enough to quickly and fully respond, he gets a point in my book for good blogger relations and his responses printed in full:

“It’s biased toward sources that cater to the Twittersphere.”

Twitter is sometimes discounted as a serious source of information due to its “what are you doing?” origins.  The reality is that Twitter is a communications platform.  In addition to 30M+ users, virtually every major news organization and top blog uses Twitter including the following:

NY Times:   http://topsy.com/twitter/nytimes

MSNBC:   http://topsy.com/twitter/msnbc

WSJ  http://topsy.com/twitter/wsj

REUTERS:   http://topsy.com/twitter/reuters

ABC:  http://topsy.com/twitter/abcnews

CBS:   http://topsy.com/twitter/cbsnews

Time Magazine:   http://topsy.com/twitter/time

The Huffington Post:   http://topsy.com/twitter/huffingtonpost

“It’s limited to things people are posting on Twitter. If no one’s posted something, it won’t show up.”

This is technically accurate but the wide adoption of Twitter combined provides very good coverage of search terms and the fact that Topsy generates search results mined from real-time conversation streams is a big advantage – not a disadvantage versus traditional search.   Traditional search algorithms based on document link structures are inherently slower to respond to relevance changes (such as breaking news).  Furthermore, there tends to be an old document bias in traditional search results as important documents of the past (which have accreted significant PageRank value) are still considered relevant today since fresher contemporary link citations from the social web are ignored.   (Eg. Google first page search results for “apple” still shows a result for a battery replacement program for the iBook G4 from 2003.)

“Tweets by influential users count more than those by the rest of us. Good or bad–you decide.”

This is a good thing as it maximizes the “signal to noise” ratio in the search results and eliminates spam.   Every author, regardless of influence, is indexed and discoverable in Topsy under their own author page.  Example:  http://topsy.com/twitter/davidjgarcia

“It may still be possible to game the system.”

No system is fool proof however Topsy’s influence algorithms are very robust and much harder to game than traditional search engines.

One point I found interesting–if you use Twitter, your author page is a neat way to find out how many people are tweeting the same links as you (example).

What do you think of Topsy? Will you use it? Have you had any success using it instead of another option?

(More about Topsy at TechCrunch)

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How Twitter killed my blog

Twitter has several advantages over blogging:

• It’s easy. The 140-character limit keeps things simple. Numerous desktop programs, mobile applications, and text messaging allow you to Twitter anywhere.
• It’s quick. As soon as you get an idea, post it.
• It’s conversational. Replies are built in. Having everyone in the same place facilitates conversation.
• It’s challenging. I think it’s fun to craft concise messages that still convey my meaning.

Twitter quickly became my creative outlet of choice. When inspiration struck, I no longer needed to develop enough elaboration for a blog post. Instead, I distilled it for consumption on Twitter. Find something inspiring online? Link to it on Twitter. Need to send a message to a friend? Twitter’s the way.

Twitter also takes time, especially as you’re learning to use all the tools. You can limit your involvement, of course, but it’s tempting to linger, especially as your connections grow. That’s time that I no longer spent updating my blog.

Why Twitter inspired my to resurrect my blog

But there are some things Twitter is not:

• It’s not flexible. Every tweet is 140 characters (or less). That’s it. If you want to add something else, you have to link to another site. There’s countless things you can do with those 140 characters, but the basic format’s the same.
• It’s not in-depth. Twitter teaches you to say a lot in just a few words. But sometimes that doesn’t cut it.
• It’s not (usually) the end destination. Many tweets are links to the other sites that host a variety of in-depth content. It’s great to provide good links, but it’s better to provide good content for links.
• It’s not enough. Because it’s quick and easy, the barriers to entry are low. As more bloggers move to Twitter, the payoff for those who remain developing content outside of Twitter (and Facebook, for that matter) stands to increase.

Perhaps ironically, it was a blog article, posted on Twitter, that reminded me of the importance of developing content (not just linking to it).

What am I doing about it?

I’m now using my blog and Twitter presence to complement each other. Some ideas will still go straight to Twitter. But the ones that deserve more attention will get it. I’m posting lots of new content this month (every day). Hopefully you’ll like some of it enough to share it.

What about you? Do you blog? Twitter? Both? Just Facebook? How do you split your time–and why?

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