Friday, January 27, 2012

Google Should Get The Twitter Firehose

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBaseAll tweets are public. On Facebook many things are private. But that is not at all true of Twitter. So it makes absolutely no philosophical sense for Twitter to not give Google access to all tweets.

Twitter fundamentally misunderstands real time. Real time is not only real time as it is happening now, today. Real time is also real time as it happened in real time two years ago, two months ago. And I want access to all my tweets.

Twitter Should Open Up Its API ---- To Google

If Google were to have access to all tweets, it would show them in the Google search results. Maybe Twitter should make available only tweets that are at least 50 hours old. That I can understand. Because you don't want people doing Google searches for real time results. For that they should go to Twitter. But for all the old tweets, Google is best positioned to serve them to us. I mean, Twitter is not even trying.

Giving Google that access will suddenly give Twitter all this amazing real estate on which to serve big display ads.

Twitter, France And Germany

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBaseWhen I read these headlines I was like, oh no, China is at it again. Ends up the guilty parties are France and Germany. And we all know Twitter never was allowed to enter China in the first place.

Sergey Brin's Is The Right Stand

Twitter Blog: Tweets still must flow
The Next Web: Twitter isn't censoring you. Your government is.
technosociology: Why Twitter's new policy is helpful for free-speech advocates
Marketing Land: Twitter Now Able To Censor Tweets, If Required By Law, On A Country-By-Country Basis
Jillian C. York: Thoughts on Twitter's Latest Move
Boing Boing: Twitter caves to global censorship, will block content on country-specific basis as required

Something tells me there is going to be a ruckus.