She Geeks In Tech – Stop Using Search Engines, Start Twittering
Jun 17 2008 
View Comments
This is a guest post by Alana Taylor, a contributing writer for Mashable and a Journalism major at NYU. “Tech, Lifecasting, Blogging, Sushi, and Film are my life!”. You can subscribe to Alana’s blog here.
There are many different ways of using Twitter. You can use it to micro-blog, to get ideas for articles, promoting your personal brand, to meet up with friends, to stalk the internet famous, yadda yadda. I use it in all those ways and more. And I think it’s healthy to balance your approach between taking it very seriously and very lightly. Yes, you should try to expand your audience. But try to have fun while you do it.
Twitter has been written about in thousands of blog posts around the internet. So much so that I myself feel like an idiot for writing about it yet again. But there’s one way of using Twitter that I find extremely useful, and I would feel like more of an idiot if I didn’t address it.
I use Twitter as a search engine. More specifically, I turn to Twitter when I am too lazy to Google.
You might be thinking, "Too lazy to Google? It gets results to quickly!" Yes, you are right. However, the thing about search engines is that they search for content that features your keywords and don’t necessarily give you answers. You have to find the answers yourself. Luckily, search engines are getting smarter, but in the end you still end up doing a lot of the searching.
I jump over this hurdle by looking at Twitter as a personal, user-generated Google. Take, for example, the day I downloaded the movie Superbad. When I tried to play the movie it opened in Quicktime, but there was no sound. I was frustrated. I could have easily searched Google for "Quicktime sound help," "No sound on Quicktime," "Audio troubleshoot Quicktime," etc. And I may have found what I was looking for. But I was too lazy. I wanted faster results. Results that had already been tested by someone else and proven to work.
So I twittered: "Need geek help. I downloaded a movie and Quicktime is playing it but there is no sound. The Audio MIDI is fine. What do I do?" Within 2 minutes I was bombarded with @replies of different things I could do to solve my problem. Sure, not everyone gave me the same response, but I saw which was most popular (using VLC in this case) and I went ahead and listened to their suggestions. Five minutes after twittering my problem, it was fixed.
Google could never have done that for me. Not even Yahoo! Answers. I would have had to search myself for a way to fix the sound, based on forums and troubleshoot FAQ’s.
The only prerequisite for using Twitter this way is to have a large number of followers so that they can act as the levers and pulleys to your user-generated search engine. But once you have that down, just ask your question, sit back and wait. Chances are someone will know the answer. And if more than one person agrees with that answer… your problem is, more often than not, solved.
This is just one of the many ways I use Twitter. I have similar success stories for a number of different functions, from polling to marketing to partying and job searching. But I am interested in you. How do you use Twitter?
LOVED IT? SHARE IT!:
Having a large number of Twitter followers that can offer you useful advice seems to be a large prerequisite. I don't have many followers on Twitter, and I doubt that most of my followers are actually listening to me.
To get a lot of legitimate followers, you have to generate good content, and enough of it that they enjoy reading it. That can be a lot of work. The thing about Google is that you just type something in, and a lot of times, you'll get results.
Of course, Twitter is searchable by Google, which means that if a person with a lot of followers asks a question, the rest of the Internet can benefit from the followers' replies.
Great minds think alike. A friend of mine pointed out your blog post… I had blogged something very similar recently.
I think Twitter is in many ways, becoming a lightweight, people-powered search engine: http://www.johnberns.com/2008/05/07/is-twitter-...
possible248: While having a following is helpful in getting your answers, there are a lot of people that track terms such as “ubuntu” “python” or “drupal” and they are often very helpful at answering questions; they track the terms because it's something they are interesting and psionate about.
Twitter rules!
I use twitter as a way to network with various different online groups. I'm starting to network with bloggers and also a lot of youtubers are starting to use it as a de-facto extension of their profiles.
My only problem with the non-geek, techie types is that they don't go beyond their group of friends. They tend to see it as a glorified IM client. None of the chose to use it as a vehicle to promote themselves or discover new people like I continue to do.
As possible248 says it requires a large number of followers (maybe 1000+) to get some decent feedback.
I've got 300 followers and I rarely get an answer back, but it also depends on the answers.
Instead of buggering my followers with questions I google search it and then tweet about it afterwards, perhaps another one is looking for the same thing as well.
agree, followers amount really matters. got some work to do :)
That would be a nice post – how to get more followers. I have several ideas on my mind, but crowdsourcing surely helps.
Here's another take on why Twitter is the next Google:
http://tinyurl.com/6mlvez
Mark
Like you mention, you need a big audience, and it works. Don't know if it's me (i don't actually), but I'm french canadian and twitter is still pretty small in our community. I turn myself to anglo community, but inside m I would want to have more french on twitter.. maybe one day.
I recently asked my fellow twitterers what I should get my boyfriend for his birthday. I've only got 49 followers, and I got around 8 responses within about 2 mins… v impressed :)
Hi Alana and Corvida,
I just stumbled across this post and only later noticed who it was written by! What you're talking about here is a main way that people are using Needish in Chile – soon in the US as well, we hope. Searching can get you all sorts of things, but it only gets you what other people have written before, never the exact answer to your question in that minute. By sharing what you need – whether it's a tech question or anything else – with people who for whatever reason are interested in you or a specific area (followers on Twitter, friends on Facebook or Needish, people following the word “quicktime” on Needish) you get help tailored to you.
I use Twitter more as a personal mini-blog and lately as a social media tool, both to talk about Needish and to see what other people are saying about us and about news on the web in general.
I google for answers. With all the hype about Twitter, I seriously need to test drive to see it for myself.
I google for answers. With all the hype about Twitter, I seriously need to test drive to see it for myself.
<style type=”text/css”>
<!–
.STYLE1 {
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
}
–>
</style>
Do you know about Links of London Jewelry ? It is now the most popular one through all over the world. All are handcrafted from UK. Links of London Jewelry covers Links of London Sweetie Bracelet, Links of London necklace, Links of London Charm and Links of London Earrings. All are brand-new one, and popular among people. Sweetie bracelet, links sweetie bracelet, links charm bracelet, links friends bracelet, charm bracelet, links charms, links bracelet, all are best seller. Wanna enjoy fast delivery, free shipping and excellent cusotmer service ? Welcome to shop with http://www.linksoflondons.co.uk .