I think I must be turning into some sort of freak (fill in the kneejerk comment of your choice at the end of this blog, there are plenty to choose from). I've just read this interesting story that says Google is going to launch a microblogging search engine. It's
here. You're going to be able to search Twitter and similar services using Google. Search engines have been going through a torrid time lately with Wolfram Alpha, Google Waves and Bing; this inclusion of Tweets in Google is the latest salvo.
It was a bit of a worry to me, though, as I've just written a book on social networking and made the claim that you can already do that. Whoops.
Except...
I remembered that someone once tried to make up a word to describe what happens when you heckle someone using Twitter - so instead of shouting a comment at a comedy event, you leave a 'witty' comment. So, Twitter heckling becomes 'Tweckling'. I mention this because it's a word that doesn't really exist officially so just about the only place you'll find it is on this guy's Tweets.
So I entered 'Tweckling' into Google. And guess what. This guy's Tweets come up, after the usual (and useful) Google attempts at guessing what this word was supposed to be. They're just there. Already. And they've been there for some time.
So, Google is going to include...something that's already there? There's going to be a reason for this, and it's going to be blindingly obvious when someone explains it to me. For the moment, though, I can't see the gap this announcement is trying to fill.
