Those that follow this blog will know I’m an advocate of Twitter in the sense that it allows brands to connect with their customers at ground level in a non-intrusive way. But, tonight I realised one of the major advantages of Twitter that could make it rival Google in the search sector.

Two things happened:

Firstly, I was watching tonight’s episode of Top Gear and Jezza showed a joke on the on-set TV during the “News” segment. The audience laughed but the cameras panned back to intentionally ensure living room viewers couldn’t see what was being shown. Odd I thought - so I jumped onto my generally-on laptop and did a search on Google to see if it could shed any light as to what was shown. Unfortunately not and I was none-the-wiser

Then…

Flicking around Sky I stumbled halfway into the Nascar Brickyard 400 being shown on Sky Sports. No sooner are we on-track than the producers taken us into the studio and a discussion starts about “how ridiculous this situation is. Nascar should be embarrassed!”. Sounds interesting, so as before I tap my search in as quick as a flash but again no clues. Then it hits me…Twitter Search. Sure enough DavidWallace gives me the inside track (pardon the pun). Goodyear have screwed up and there’s a yellow flag every 15 laps (indeed a ridiculous situation)

Twitter recently picked up Summize and swiftly turned it into Twitter Search that allows people to search through every Tweet up to the second. Whilst this is nowhere near as extensive as a Google Search, the advantage of Twitter Search is that it’s literally up-to-the-second. By the time Google’s spiders pick up the news my interest has gone, I want to know what the score is right now and fortunately 140 characters is enough to satisfy my intrigue.

I appreciate this is all a bit obvious, the entire premise of Twitter is that fact that it’s a collection people’s musings and thoughts at any point in time. However, as membership grows it will become an even more important and useful tool for any Internet user. People are questioning where the future of Twitter lies and in my view it is Twitter Search - perhaps not a rival to the current search giants but certainly an increasingly useful alternative.