We have all been wondering what Twitter plans to do to monetize their business. Recently receiving $35 Million in funding, they have to be getting close to making some decisions. Where we now know Twitter sees its lucrative opportunity is in search. I doubt it is what Google offers in terms of indexing the entire online world and making it available through a single text box. Rather a Twitter search world would most likely look like the “what’s happening right now” search engine. Giving consumers, companies and the world access to near real time conversations that take place online. It’s because of this potential that Twitter sees in search that the Twitter co-founders walked away from a $500 million offer from Facebook.
While being a searchable database of what is being said at a particular time is unique, it doesn’t take Twitter too far afield from Google, which is a catalog of the world’s recorded knowledge. Google looks back at what documents have been produced and can be surfaced, while Twitter looks back at what was said on a given topic. To monetize this, there is certainly an AdWords-like business there.
In the future, searches won’t only query what’s being said at the moment, but will go out to the Twitter audience in the form of a question, like a faster and less-filtered Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers. Users would be able to tap the collective knowledge of the 6 million or so members of the Twitterverse. So search according to Twitter could also be considered immediate market research. Now that makes the whole thing quite distinct and possibly more interesting that the next Google Labs feature.
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