

Twitter and the value of real-time search - trjordan
http://mumbledrantings.blogspot.com/2009/03/real-time-search-is-all-rage-these-days.html

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dan_sim
I've been on twitter for 2 years and I just understood its value : real-time
search. When I want to find our newest competitor, how do you find it on
google? You can't. You'll only find the biggest ones. It's easy on twitter
because someone _will_ talk about it.

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diego
Here's an example using our tool. You can see that Lost must not have aired
this Wednesday by looking at the chart. Also, people discuss Lost 3x as much
as Heroes:

[http://twist.flaptor.com/trends?gram=lost,heroes&table=1](http://twist.flaptor.com/trends?gram=lost,heroes&table=1)

Another interesting pattern is Lost vs. American Idol:

[http://twist.flaptor.com/trends?gram=lost%2Cidol&table=1](http://twist.flaptor.com/trends?gram=lost%2Cidol&table=1)

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twism
So how would you separate "lost wast good last night" from "i cant believe
uconn lost"?

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diego
Because the volume of tweets about Lost when it airs is so high that it trumps
everything else. Here is perhaps a better example:

[http://twist.flaptor.com/freq?gram=american&table=0](http://twist.flaptor.com/freq?gram=american&table=0)

If you click on the peaks (caused by American Idol) you'll see the results for
a query on the term "American" at that time. A significant number of those
mention American Idol.

Now click near the right of the chart. Almost no results mention the show.

~~~
twism
Fair enough. Keep up the good work.

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dangoldin
Agreed. I also had a similar revelation and blogged about it.

<http://www.dangoldin.com/2009/03/08/power-of-twitter/>

