SheGeeks

Mike Arrington is right, it’s definitely time to start thinking of Twitter as a search engine. I’m going to tell you exactly how powerful Twitter’s search data is and why you might want to start using Twitter’s search engine a lot more than Google.

SxSW Interactive

For the past three day’s because of Twitter, I’ve been able to score a Press Pass for SxSW Interactive (free) and stumble upon a ride to Austin from Atlanta (I just need to help with driving) with the awesomesauce Grant Robertson, lead blogger of Download Squad (a must subscribe), and his awesomesauce other half Christina Warren b.k.a @film_girl from The Unofficial Apple Weblog. They’re native residents of Atlanta. Guess who told me that? I’m generating great sponsorship offers to accommodate the outrageous hotel prices for SxSW Interactive because of Twitter search also.

After all this, the surprises didn’t stop there. Today I became a panelist for the panel: Can the Afrosphere Survive the Age of Obama (If you have room on your schedule, stop by). I DM’d the Moderator of this panel a few months back when it seemed she might need an extra panelist. I saw her tweet about the dilemma  because of Twitter search. I highly doubt she would’ve been in Google’s results and she was exactly who I was looking for. Now I have access to a few Film panels too.     

     
All of this was made possible with a few connections that gave great advice, and a lot of playing with keywords on Twitter’s search engine to find everything I needed to gain sponsorship. Twitter was where I gathered the bulk of my results. Not our beloved Google.

       
Pay Attention

How I came across the information is by paying attention to the context of the tweets and who tweeters were responding to. Twitter’s search engine is full of connections. You only have to pay attention to the stream. The results are so much more personalized all because it’s YOUR creation. It’s a human powered search engine in a lot of ways! It has a TON of potential once the masses figure out how to use it.

Something to ponder, yes?

Popularity: 14% [?]

If you’ve ever tried to explain to a friend the difference between their Facebook status and Twitter, tell them it’s the community.

There are tons of social networks to hop aboard these days. From Facebook to Myspace to Twitter to Friendfeed to Bebo to Identi.ca to Plurk. There’s almost too many to name and most certainly too many to try out. They all seem like the same thing anyways, right? Wrong! Wrong, wrong, WRONG! Here are a few points that help social networks separate themselves from one another:

• Community
• Conversations of the Community
• Content
• Feature-Set




Community & Conversations

The community is the key to separating social networks. The difference between a Facebook status update and a tweet, is the difference between apples and oranges; though they’re grouped in the same category, you just can’t compare them. Twitter is all about making conversations happen. However, the majority of these conversations revolve around some type of content: a YouTube video, an article, a blog post, a picture, a new service or web app. This helps to create conversations based on opinions. We review services and apps with our tweets. We review brands, companies, writers, and more. We share our thoughts and interests in the conversations via Twitter. Technology is a consistently popular topic along with politics.

On the other hand, the Facebook community tends to have more intimate and personal conversations. Users share memories via pictures, moments via videos, and experiences with close friends and family via status updates. The community behind Facebook makes the entire experience a lot more personal and intimate than the community backing Twitter.
        


Content

The content between both networks are normally different too. Twitter’s content is centered around links and topics of interests to a diverse group of users. Facebook’s content is centered around images and personal details. The content is very different and rarely overlaps.

         
Feature-Set

The feature-set of both social networks also enforces different behavior. Though both are tools for communication, you should be aware that different tools can create different reactions, especially when integrated with the right user interface. Facebook promotes more personal and intimate relationship building features such as games, image and video uploads, groups.

Twitter doesn’t have a group feature yet. It’s designed to make you pay attention to your entire audience, which is normally full of people you wouldn’t want to share your most personal details with. So instead, we share links to things of interests. This is just another way to help establish a connection & to network with professionals according to your interests, instead of your personal life.
     

The Difference Is In The Community

In the end, there all very different. The difference lies in the community; with what they share, what they say, and how they interact.

Popularity: 11% [?]

This is a guest post by Grand Effect member David Peralty of College Crunch. If you enjoy this post, please be sure to give College Crunch a look when you’re done for more of his awesome work!

The social aspect of community is changing so rapidly, where we once had to seek people out at their homes, or on their phones, the conversation has moved to a myriad of online services where visual or verbal communication is a rarity, but is this type of constant connection with others helping or hindering our sense of community?

Old School Tools, New School Rules

At first we had bulletin boards, which remind me of what Twitter and Friendfeed do in a way. They allow the conversation to occur on a third party service between friends, family or acquaintances. These communications are usually rather short, due to limitations imposed by the services, or just because of the interface people are using, such as their mobile devices. I also spend a fair bit of time on instant messaging services like Google Talk, AIM, and Windows Live Messenger, conversing with people in a back and forth much like I would if they were sitting next to me. I type quickly, and press enter after each sentence or two so that I am always pushing out information and thoughts to the interested person or people.

Much of my day can be attributed to handling comments on my blog, making sure to respond to the ones that are genuine, and remove the ones that are spam. These comments can be of any length, depth or detail, and are always a delight to read as they respond to insights I have posted on my blog. My favorite tool for communicating online is Skype, as it allows me to have a verbal or audio/video conversation with certain people. I feel that this gives me a much better connection to the person that I am talking to, and can feel more like I am sharing the same space with them.

Too Many Tools Can Lead To Disconnection

With all of these different forms of online communication, most of them leaves me feeling rather unfulfilled and disconnected. I believe this is in part why so many social events like Barcamps, Meetups, and whatnot are so successful, as many of the connections we make with people are flimsy online. They only scratch the surface of who they are because text alone is very limiting. The advantage of all of this online community and communication is of course being able to find great people with a similar set of beliefs, interests, and goals, which helps me feel like there is a community to be part of, even while I live in a small city with little focus on technology and a total lack of the geeky people that I love to hang around. Knowing that there are others out there in the world that feel as I do, and want to come together for events makes the whole day to day feeling of disconnection from those around me feel so inconsequential. There are a whole world of people out there, and the first step to meeting them is available online in nearly any format.

Don’t Just Join, Explore Your Options

There are communities online for any interest and I highly recommend you all explore them, as they can definitely be worth your time. I have made more than a few friends that I can see being life-long friends thanks to taking the first steps to communicate with them online. While online communication might usually be missing the verbal and visual cues that make up ninety percent of our communication, it is still a great way to start getting an insight into potential friends. And if you want to meet a community rock star, I suggest adding Corvida to whatever social sites you are part of.

Discussion

What do you think of the community connections people are making online? What communities are you part of and how have they helped you? Let me know in the comments below.

Popularity: 6% [?]