Google is now on Twitter. As insane as it may seem, it has taken Google years to start using their Google account, which is located at Twitter.com/Google
Google + Twitter = Twoogling?
Their first post, a Twoogle if you will, was a binary message (way to geek it up Google) :
“I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010”
Roughly translated to : I’m F E E L I N G L U C K Y
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sign. No, it’s not a sign of a Google acquisition, although John Battelle did start off my morning with an excellent post on how Twitter is the new YouTube :
“So why did Google really buy YouTube? My answer, which of course looks brilliant given it’s 20/20 hindsight: YouTube was a massive search asset.
After all, YouTube now gets more searches than Yahoo, Google’s closest search rival.“
Battelle argues that Twitters main asset may not be its userbase or its buzz, but its “Real time. Converational Search”
So, does Google opening up it’s Twitter account with binary riddles spell the ultimate acquisition of Twitter by Google. Not really. Instead it more or less signifies that Google has accepted Twitter as a form of mass communication in the same way that Google was interested in Blogger and Blogging. Remember when the Official Google Blog was first launched in 2004? Before that, Google relied on Google Groups and various webmaster forums to communicate with its users, webmasters, publishers and other target audiences.
Now, Google has a blog for everything. The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. The Official GMail Blog. Google LatLong. The Google Analytics Blog …etc. Noticing a trend here?
One problem with blogging however. Remember that GMail outage we had on Monday night? Where was the Official GMail Blog then?
GMail Outage Uproar More Popular Than Obama
The GMail outage ran from Monday evening (as early as 12 am EST) until early Tuesday morning (outages were still being reported at 8 am EST). In a nutshell, GMail and Google Apps was down for half of the world during their peak business hours. Scary.
At 11 am PST, roughly 7 hours after coming back online and 13 hours after the GMail outage began, Google addressed the outage on the Official GMail Blog.
It took Google 13 hours to address the largest global outage of their flagship business service on their blog.
Now look at the Twitter Trends for GMail, Google and Google Mail over this same time period (as provided by Flaptor’s Twist) :
To put the Twitter buzz into perspective, look at a comparison of the Twittering about GMail during its outage to the Twittering about Obama during his Congressional speech later that same day.
Yes, there were almost twice as much Tweeting going on that day about GMail than Obama addressing the nation. And President Obama’s speech was a massive global event which has a direct influence on the world’s economy.
Google Should Have Been Twittering on Day One
And during all of this, Google was not using its Google Twitter account. While the rest of the world was Twittering about Google’s GMail crash, Google was sleeping (or at least its Twitter account was).
Google is not getting into Twitter in a test before acquiring the company. Google is getting into Twitter because Twitter is where it’s all happening. Google is entering the Twitter game for reputation management, to communicate, to address instant concerns and because they see that the world is Twittering, and Google is the last kid to join the team. Google is late to the game. The world is Twittering, and now Google is too.
Twitter is real ladies and gentlemen. It is realtime conversation. Senators are Twittering. Journalists are Twittering. Demi Moore is I would not be surprised if the President of the United States starts Twittering. And now Google is Twittering.
I think John Battelle has a good point about Twitter’s realtime search value. And how it may someday provide more searches than YouTube or Yahoo, but he also brings up that Twitter’s founders already sold Blogger to Google, and walked away from that sale with a bad taste in their mouths. Now they are sitting on something massive. A global mobile communications tool, soon to be on the laptops, PC’s and cellphones of the world’s population.. talking, searching, living, via Twitter.
Google on Twitter May Mean NO Acquisition
Now that Google has entered the game they give more value to Twitter. They have validated its dominance of communication and microblogging, which is probably one reason they stayed away from Twittering in the past.
Google did not start blogging until it acquired Blogger, other search engines were blogging AND revamped their Blogger platform. Meaning that Google was not about to start blogging and legitimize the practice as an open form of communication until their owned blogger and could influence the direction of blogging as a whole. As a matter of fact, Search Engine Journal was blogging before Google was blogging.
By using Twitter, has Google thrown in the acquisition towel? Twitter has already turned down a $500 million offer, in the middle of a recession, imagine what its worth will be in one or two years. Perhaps Twitter is reaching the point where it’s getting too big for acquisition and more likely to go in a while new direction.
Your thoughts and comments are welcome.
