Twitter > Google (OK OK not now, 10yrs maybe)
Back in 1996, I lived and worked in Boston. I’d get up every day and the first thing I did before I hopped on the train to go to work was to buy a Boston Globe. I read it cover to cover even though I was online at this time.
This lasted until about 2002, when the web really started to take over how I received information. A combination of faster internet connections, better computers, great search engines, and better websites started to decline my newspaper purchases. By 2004, I rarely bought a newspaper. My sources of information were mostly delivered from online resources and is even more true today.
From 2002-2008, I used to search the internet about things I heard on TV, a conversation at work, something my friend called me to talk about, etc, then find websites I’d like and bookmark them, the CNNs, ESPNs, MSNBC, etc.
In 2009, I’m back to reading the Globe, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. (not the paper format, the online format)
How?
Twitter.
Now I subscribe to twitter users (feeds) for the sources of information. They lead me to direct links of articles I am interested in on Boston.com (Globe website), Wall Street Journal, etc.
For those of you who don’t “get” twitter yet, I have heard it called Macro-blogging but think of Twitter as ‘reverse forum’. You have all visited an online forum via website-> forum-> forum topic-> forum thread-> view individual post. If you want to post, you then sign up and join the conversation.
Twitter starts with you, the user. You sign up, and you subscribe to other users posts. You dont have to say anything, you can ‘lurk’ anonymously, and follow who you wish. And you can find tweets (twitter actions) posted in categories under hashtags, like #poker, #stocks, #Obama, #redsox, and then subscribe to the users who are providing you with information that you like, etc.
Now when I’m using twitter I see replies, and Re-tweets, from the users I follow and I look up the profiles of users they follow. If they have information I like, I subscribe. I find myself going to Google less and less and subscribing more and more. It a Twitter-user snow-ball effect.
Google knows Twitter is big. They recently have signed a real-time search connection with Twitter. Once you find more and more Twitter users to follow, you will not be returning to Google as soon as you get the snow ball started.
IMO
You can follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/joetall and DeucesCracked here: http://twitter.com/deucescracked
Oh yeah, one note, Facebook, my twitter updates my facebook, so I never go there anymore as I do not care if you found a secret stash of Dubinas in Mafia Wars, honestly.