back to article Twitter CRAWLS to Google ON ITS KNEES, starts blowing content

Twitter has crawled to Google to get Tweets displayed in the ad giant's search results once again. The micro-blabbing site previously had a deal with Mountain View to provide feeds of tweets directly within its search results. However, that two-year-long agreement ended in July 2011. Now, four years later, it's a different …

  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    FAIL

    Did I understand this corerctly?

    I run a search in Google and get Twitter vomited upon me?

    No thanks...

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Did I understand this corerctly?

      No, you get relevent tweets vomited upon you.

      Mine's the throw away plastic mac, thanks.

      We do need a FTFY icon; a hammar or something.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: Did I understand this corerctly?

        I am not convinced that there *are* any relevant tweets.

  2. David Lewis 2
    Facepalm

    Could be worse?

    What if Google did a similar deal with Facebook? Oh crap, I hope I haven't given anyone ideas...

  3. Dan Paul

    Just exactly who decides.....

    what is considered "relevant"? Is there a search option that excludes all "tweets"?

    An enterprising programmer might want to make a search engine that does have that feature. Perhaps an even better programmer might make one that sends take down messages for every tweet that gets included in results.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just exactly who decides.....

      I completely agree. If I'm searching in Google, I'm searching for documents. I'll be wanting to switch off or exclude other content type such as 'tweets'.

      Thinking about it, I would also like to exclude Wikipedia results as well, which google results seem to have been well stuffed with for quite a while now ...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      GoogleFu

      -site:twitter. com

      Works with other search engines and site domains (-site:ebay. com when shopping) too.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Twitter-geddon

    For all you hackers out there, would it be possible to setup a Twitter bot that searches google for information about Justin Bieber and then tweets a link to the first hit, causing Google to index it? A feedback loop of banality, if you will.

    According to my calculations, if running on a fat pipe, BieberBot should consume all available planetary computational resources in about 6 months, and this will end with it either gaining self-awareness or just causing both Twitter and Google datacenters to melt down in a Chernobyl-style cataclysm.

    A couple lines of PHP should be sufficient.

    1. hi_robb

      Re: Twitter-geddon

      Can we have some added bonus of it melting down Justin Beaver?

      D

  5. skeptical i
    Thumb Down

    Adding '-twitter.com' to search query string will work, right?

    I suppose it hasn't occurred to "them" that if I really wanted to know twaddlers' opinions about $topic, I'd just go to twitter.com and search for it?

    1. Graham Marsden
      Facepalm

      Re: Adding '-twitter.com' to search query string will work, right?

      > if I really wanted to know twaddlers' opinions about $topic, I'd just hit myself over the head until I stopped thinking that way!

      FTFY :-)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thats it I'm never searching under 140 characters again...

    and yes I had to look up the limit.

  7. Daniel Voyce
    Thumb Up

    I would just like to congratulate

    Kelly Fiveash on that title.... take 10 internets Ma'am

  8. Frank N. Stein

    What does the pic of a crazed looking Taylor Swift have to do with the article?

    1. tesmith47

      mouth open , fat pipe ready, any questions???

  9. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Why do companies still waste time and money on Twitter.

    This isn't directly related to the news but I hate Twitter so much I thought I'd share it. I'm flying shortly with KLM, who've generally done a good job with their website, it must be said. As is now fashionable for airline companies you have to opt to pay to take luggage, though how anyone travelling for more than a couple of days expects to get away with just hand luggage is beyond me*. I get confirmation of my flight and my luggage allowance only to get another e-mail yesterday telling me I have no luggage. The website tells me I can in touch by Twitter or Facebook and even has dials estimating response times. I call and ask for confirmation: yes, you have paid for checked baggage and can ignore the e-mail. This annoys me and costs KLM money. If they spent more time fixing the communication between their systems and less on PR gimmicks like customer support via Twitter they'd provide better service and save money.

    *I'm starting to avoid airlines that do this as it only seems to encourage people to try and carry everything, including the kitchen sink, as hand luggage, significantly slowing down boarding and not unusually involving bumps and scapes as people try cramming the stuff wherever they can.

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