The last few months have seen repeated claims by A-list pundits who declared Google search dead in the face of Twitter’s rapid response to news events. They are absolutely right when it comes to a short-lived, rapidly changing event, like an earthquake, where all you need to know is who, what, when, and where. The explosion of interest in Swine Flu this weekend, however, revealed the weakness of Twitter. That is the huge percentage of tweets that are essentially repetitions of a few lame jokes. There are the “I’m still eating bacon” jokes, the “gotta get me some pork BBQ before swine flu hits,” and unrepeatable jokes about sex with pigs. Then there are the hateful comments about Muslims and Jews. And the racist comments about Mexico. As a contrast, take a look at the Swine Flu Alerts Twitter stream I created this weekend that retweets Google News Alerts and results from official sources about Swine Flu. The flow from Google is much lower in volume, but higher in quality.
Does this mean that Twitter is not useful for watching news, and specifically news about Swine Flu? Not at all. My point isn’t that Twitter doesn’t have a lot of quality information. It is just that informal nature of Twitter seems to bring the idiot in many people. Trying to watch the Twitter stream for “swine flu” gets pretty painful after the 100th repetition of the same stupid joke. What does work well is watching the use of specific words in relation to this event. For example, cancel “swine flu” shows some real agonizing over giving up vacations with families and even honeymoon trips.
In the end both Twitter and Google Alerts have a role, and as long as you can learn to control the results with more precise queries, you can get the best of both tools.
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