Commentary

Google Takes Shot In Battle To Own Real-Time Search

by Joe Marchese , December 8, 2009

It's hard to communicate the magnitude of Google's real-time search debut, but I think my friend's status update sums it up: "Google's launch of real-time search will change your life, whether you know it or not."

If you're in media or marketing, you can count on an even more pronounced change. Ironically, if you were using Google to search the real-time Web, you wouldn't find my friend's thoughts -- he posted them as his Facebook status update, and Facebook currently has a deal giving access to Microsoft's search engine Bing, the second largest player in the search market (disclosure: Bing is a client of my company). MG Siegler has the two most recent deals for Google real-time search data covered for TechCrunch here (MySpace deal) and here (Google real-time launch).

The battle is just getting started to own real-time search, and it's going to be epic -- like any new market with billions of dollars at stake. Right now most real-time search results are still just noise -- but don't kid yourself, this isn't one of those "it'll change someday" things. Real-time search is already starting to have an effect on users people's online behavior. For an excellent in-depth analysis of what real-time search is and could become, I recommend this report by David Spark, "Real-Time Search and Discovery of the Social Web."

While Google, Microsoft and a host of start-ups try to figure out how to offer people real-time search, and how it will change the way people use search and discover content, what are the implications marketers should be considering?

Well, there are a lot, but here is the biggie, in my humble opinion: Real-time search results will require real-time search optimization and marketing. Real-time search optimization may not necessarily be as technical as typical search optimization and marketing. It will just require commons sense, a good strategy and appropriate resources.

Real-time search will change the way people's thoughts of your brands surface, and offer a new source of brand/product information to potential customers. This is great if you can encourage people who are happy with your brand to share what they think -- and not so great if the most vocal are those who think the worse.

Unfortunately, all else being equal, someone with a complaint is much more likely to be vocal than someone who is content or even happy with your brand. So optimizing your brand's real-time search results will require giving people who like your brand a reason to talk about it, along with your helping to shape and contribute to the conversation.

Last night I asked my Twitter and Facebook friends what people thought of real-time search. Here's what my friend and colleague Alex Van Camp responded: "Google's launch is going to slam real-time search into the average Internet user's face. I really don't think most people (even a person with a FB or Twitter [account]) have ever thought of search this way. When they see it, it's going to be a very empowering moment for consumers, and I think they will recognize that immediately."

Make your own contribution to the real-time Web by tweeting your responses to www.twitter.com/joemarchese -- and/or add your voice to the comments section of this post ;-)

commentary, google, real-time web, search

3 comments about "Google Takes Shot In Battle To Own Real-Time Search".

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Kevin Courteau from Global Crossing, December 8, 2009 at 3:09 p.m.
Why mix search and social media? Don't these apps serve different purposes? When searching for industry topis and solutions this seems like too much clutter.
But suitable for keeping abreast of the Tiger Woods trangresions saga, or asking opinons about the latest movie or books.
So more of a consumer value than a business value.
Not the end of social media, but perhaps the end for other search engines - more comments on my blog at:
http://blogs.globalcrossing.com/?q=category/blog-topic/anywhere-connectivity
Reply

Mark McLaughlin, December 8, 2009 at 7:51 p.m.

Joe, great insights. I think you are right but I am struggling with what happens to real time search in massively scaled social networks. Use Twitter as an example. Just six months ago, if a huge building caught on fire in New York City, Twitter was awesome because people who were actually on location were tweeting about what they were seeing and I could follow their threads efficiently with real time search. But, today - same situation and same tweeting going on, but within minutes thousands of people are tweeting about THEIR FEELINGS ABOUT THE FIRE and they are not even in close proximity to the event. Those tweets drown out the really valuable stuff - do you think Google's technologies will be able to sort the wheat from the chaf in real time for events that could not have been predicted?

Suzanne Vara, December 15, 2009 at 12:55 p.m.

Joe

I agree that real time search will require optimization and marketing. I have performed some unscientific searches to see what will come up in real time search (comparing to twitter search at the same time) and it is pretty amazing to see what makes it and when a topic has no activity, how the real time search just goes away.

This will change how brands monitor and also engage in social media. The small companies will delve in and out of trying to keep their brand afloat in this area.

Keyword laden tweets will be a big part of this in their respective niches.

It will be interesting to see how big brands react to this as we know that certain ones need some BIG time help in customer service.