Google starts using its Twitter account

March 3rd, 2009 by Scott Wolf

Google has had an account on Twitter for a little while, but had yet to post an update until last Wednesday. Appropriately, Google’s first tweet was a binary message that translates to “I’m Feeling Lucky.”

Some out there, like Loren Baker, an Editor at Search Engine Journal, are saying that’s maybe a sign Google could be thinking about acquiring Twitter, which would be a pretty good move IMO. One of the most important components of Twitter is its search capability, which allows people to keep up with the many topics and trends coursing through the service in real-time. Why wouldn’t the world’s largest and most powerful search engine want a part of that? Isn’t that partially why they acquired YouTube? For it’s high traffic and increasing frequency of its users using search tools? If its stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” why not include conversational search to their arsenal? Though it sounds likely on the surface, people like Baker don’t think it’s necessarily a tell-tale sign, but more of an indication that “Google has accepted Twitter as a form of mass communication in the same way that Google was interested in Blogger and Blogging.”

Twitter basically makes zero revenue, and is totally backed by investment. But it’s user base has grown something like 900% in the last year. Facebook (with a little backing by Microsoft) attempted to acquire Twitter back in November of last year, but the deal fell through. Maybe Google, having no direct competition with the micro-blogging service, and a whole lot to gain by investing in the indexing of conversations as another valuable search asset, has a few ideas on how to turn a profit. I certainly think they could. It might be a challenge, just like it’s been challenging for them to monetize YouTube, but they’re Google. They can do anything. And if they can’t figure it out on their own, they can always Google it.

— Scott Wolf

This entry was posted by Scott Wolf on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 and is filed under Blogging, Business, Google, News, Sites We Like, Social Networking, Trend Spotting, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.