2above.com

Today, ReadWriteWeb.com posted a great article about “Twitter Crowns Bit.ly As The King of Short Links; Here’s What It Means”., as they put it simply about the truth about “Bit.ly”, the URL shortening service, is that its not a URL shortener, its a trend management and metrics platform. It says that

“People share links to pages in the following ways: by email, on Facebook, on Twitter and through countless other methods. The company that does the best job analyzing that sharing activity and creating a compelling user experience based on it is likely to become a very big deal”

It further concludes:

We don’t want to argue that Bit.ly is the next Google, but the technology it’s brought to market could be very important in the indexing of the social web.

Pulling out Google card got me thinking, thinking hard and way back to pre-Google era, and how searches/indexing/analyzing social web could possibly introduce another Google to the world. Following is what I was thinking out loud, and posted as comment to ReadWriteWeb’s blog post (too long, I know). I hope it can speak to the average Joe.

Let me think out loud: before Google, we searched the web and never could find the relevant website for the keywords. Google came out combing through it with page-rank (algorithms involving huge linear/non linear algebra metrics), then the web became an orderly place when we came to Google’s site.

Now imagine the social web, to simplify the matter, imagine social web being only twitter (which is a good assumption), is it a place with order? Are we frustrated that we can’t seem to find the right…hm…tweets with the right link pointing to the website linked upon by social web? For example, Maybe I am looking for the right tweets pointing me the right resources about Portland since I am about to visit (not really) there, search.twitter.com does not rank the resulting tweets on its search page so I have no way to know which one is a good tweet, maybe with a resourceful link. With Tweepz.com, search results show people with “Portland” in their profile, and you can filter the results in a variety of ways, such as # of followers, join dates etc., but it’s not enough, the filter is too minimal, I still can not find the right people/tweets/links. So let’s try twazzup.com, which is much more advanced as it pulls up most recent tweets with “visit portland” along with “top tweets”, “most popular links”, although I have no idea how they are placed/indexed/sorted. Nevertheless twazzup is one step closer to ideal results about “visit Portland”

With a super smart Bit.Ly, tons of data can be pulled out through its API, service like search.twitter.com or Twazzup could aggregate that “link” data, slice/dice it and present along with the search results which will be better than currently served, which also makes me think: would URL shortening service become the engine of next “social web page ranker”? Or will search engines such as search.twitter.com, twazzup, or tweepz (if they catch on soon) be the driving force? Maybe a solution completely new will emerge, or maybe one will acquire another to form a joint force to present an ultimate “social web Page ranking machine”, and that machine will be key to finding the right information.

So, would the next big player be Bit.Ly, or someone else combining the analysis seen on bit.ly, along with semantic analysis of the tweets?

I hope I am making sense for you of this social web search phenomenon, and through which we will understand where to focus our energy.

Twitter’s Biz Stone tells Stephen Colbert “Revenues this year”, but not from paid account. Evan agreed with lots of twits, and an April fools day joke that “twitter pro won’t happen”

I found some clues that acquisition would highly unlikely to happen any time soon.

1. Mar. 7, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google said it’s highly unlikely for Google to acquire twitter soon, on Charlie Rose show.

2. Twitter acquired a search engine for its own purpose back in 2008 and launched new search feature. It needs a lot more work to get to the point of real search engine. That is where a potential product partnership is possible

3. a high profile Google employee Douglas Bowman, head of visual design team just joined Twitter at the end of Mar.: it’s hard to imagine Eve or Biz Stone did not mention about acquisition potential to Douglas. If they did, that move won’t happen

4. For 48 hours since April 1 the fools day, my Google alerts about “twitter” never spit out any alerts at all about twitter: Google does not want too many people find out too many details about twitter, but somehow, someone knew some rumors are about to happen

5. No acquisition detail talk at all

6. Eve the CEO of twitter twitted on April fools day saying “There is no Twitter Pro” – could be a joke but at least it means twitter is NOT betting big on pro account. which means it is betting big on search, which means twitter think it’s the future of search, not Google, which also means, twitter could be the next Google. Do u think Evan would want to just do another deal with Google to repeat his previous success? Or do u think he wants to beat Google? I think latter.

Motley analyzed on Mar. 4 that in three weeks of time, Google may acquire Twitter. Incredible stuff! Reporter/analyst was Rick Aristotle Munarriz: you go man!

(You can review the article here as well: )

You always hurt the ones you love.

That bullying boy in kindergarten, tugging on a girl’s pigtails until she cries? He’s got it bad for her. He just can’t express it yet. Similarly, Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Eric Schmidt turned heads by teasing Twitter during this week’s Morgan Stanley technology conference.

In referring to Twitter and its kind as little more than a “poor man’s email systems,” Schmidt is simply protecting his turf. With “Twittering” replacing “Googling” as the media’s Web verb of choice these days, it’s hardly surprising that the search giant would start getting defensive.

Google isn’t really taunting Twitter — it’s negotiating. Taking Twitter down a few pegs helps drive a lower price and soothes antitrust regulator concerns. And if history is any kind of dependable professor, Google is now three weeks away from swallowing Twitter whole.

Wait, hear me out!
On Oct. 1, 2007, Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Steve Ballmer took a shot at Facebook. “I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people,” he told Times Online.

That may seem like a hypocritical thing for Ballmer to say, given how Microsoft angles for pimply teens with its Xbox 360 and Zune. Sure enough, three weeks after taunting the social-networking site, Microsoft announced its $240 million investment for a piece of Facebook.

This is how it works, people. When there’s a perceived threat, you poke it with a stick. If it moves — and you’re a cash-rich company — you buy it. You saw it happen when eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) bought PayPal after its own payment platform failed; when Google bought YouTube after its own video service failed to catch on; and when companies such as Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) snapped up social-networking sites to attract younger audiences.

You always hurt the ones you love? Sure, but you also always buy the ones you need. Enjoy these last few weeks of being single, Twitter.

Techcrunch just released that Google is about to acquire twitter. I am not surprised. (see my previous post on April 1st fools day) Twitter needs a better search engine and will need resource to build it. Google has it, but Google won’t partner with twitter. Google has to get twitter in its entirety.

Michael Arrington also talked about Twitter be a search engine, and down play twitter’s “pro account” feature. I can’t agree more.

The money is in the search, twitter realized it and is testing out the search box in side bar, for people to find more interesting stuff to follow, and for business to target the “talkers” for their brand, or shop (small businesses). It’s two way communication channel, and one step above current search engine states. Once twitter gets its search fixed up for relevancy, twitter is well on its way to become next Google. Yes, you hear it right. Next Google.

Couple years ago, we had Youtube, Facebook, and we always have been wondering, who and what will be the next Google. Now we have a winner.