Social Search usage increases

I was reading a good post today on Steve Rubel’s blog about Social Search, and how Twitter Search is gaining a sharp increase in usage.

I’ve written about Social Search on a number of occasions, but Steve’s post got me thinking…

So far Twitter Search ranks information purely on temporal factors; in comparison Google ranks information according to a number of factors, including temporal inbound link information and domain authority.

Whilst it is great to see Twitter usage increasing rapidly, I still question the overall relevancy of search results delivered by Twitter – the most recent information is not always the most accurate.

B1 has been using a Greasemonkey script for Firefox, which has been allowing her to see Twitter search results embedded above Google search results. I quite like the dynamics of the information you receive; you can see news pulled in from Google/Google News and reactions/tweets from Twitter Search at the same time:

I can see this complimentary use of Twitter search gain more popularity overtime as it provides a simultaneous overview of authoritative news, and real-time Twitter reactions via keyword search.

I’m not sure if Twitter Search will become a serious rival for Google; however, I do think it will become a staple complimentary search tool for news, making it a fairer rival to Google News.