I just posted the following to my FaceBook friends -
I found the link to the wikileak’ed cable through a ‘Twitter Search’. Since I find many don’t yet use Twitter, I thought I’d post a tip on this specific feature. See below for details.
Tip: use ‘Twitter Search’ to get great info on events happening now
I find a Twitter search is a great tool for finding out interesting info on what's happening now - it's like a Google search, but you get relevant results from real people and news organizations from minutes ago.
A sample Twitter search on ‘Egypt’ – tons of info in real-time
To try it out, go to -
http://search.twitter.com/
and type 'egypt' - look at all the links to images, stories, live video feeds and even info directly from people in Cairo. There's always a lot of 'noise' - irrelevant comments, but just like in a Google/Bing search, scan around for the good stuff.
In fact, I found the link to the above wikileak'ed cable through a twitter search. For more advanced searches, see http://search.twitter.com/about.
You don’t need a Twitter account and you don’t need to post on Twitter to use its search – it’s just another way to search for information.
It’s like being part of the ‘Borg Collective’
A Twitter search is like being part of the ‘Borg Collective’
When I mentioned to Janelle how I get tons of cool comments and info when watching a football game or any other live event, she said it’s like you’re now part of the ‘Borg Collective’. The Borg The Borg are a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the show ‘Star Trek’ - from the Wikipedia entry -
Borg Collective
Also referred to as the "hive mind" or "collective consciousness" , this is the term used to describe the group mind of the Borg civilization. Each Borg individual, or drone, is linked to the collective by a sophisticated subspace network […].The collective consciousness not only gives them the ability to "share the same thoughts", but also to adapt with great speed to defensive tactics used against them
That’s exactly right! You are getting feedback from millions of people and news organizations on whatever is going on right now. Much better than just watching CNN - good times!
There are tons of other useful Twitter features – but it’s not trivial to get started. Here’s an email from Twitter with some good tips -
Like any other tool, you really ‘get’ the benefits when you gets your hands dirty and start using it. So come join us on Twitter and the above tips will make more sense -
Good times!
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