I took time off a few years ago to go back to school and study the history of technology. What I learned is that most people involved with technology aren’t interested in history. They are too busy searching for the next big thing. Right now the big thing is realtime search. I’m a techie myself, so of course I find Twitter search compelling. Just look at all that data flowing by. That is so cool! The problem is that you can easily get lost in the current stream of new tweets, and forget about the permanent Google results that are sitting there in full view.
Let’s take the recent case of Motrin. I know it seems like ancient history to anyone on Twitter, but try to think all the way back to last November when a Motrin ad created a Twitstorm. Now do a Twitter search for Motrin and see if you can find any mention of it. All gone, right? It’s already flowed past and you can’t even scroll that far back in Twitter to ever find it.
Not so fast. Do a Google search for Motrin, as millions of moms are likely to do before giving it to their kids, and what do you find? The first page has a link to the original ad that caused the furor on Twitter. The second page is filled with stories about the reaction of angry moms. That is now Motrin’s permanent record.
According to Google’s Keyword Search Tool, 165,000 people did a search for Motrin last month. Can anyone claim that the same number of people did a Twitter search for Motrin? Even with it’s massive popularity now, are there even 165,000 people in the world who know that Twitter has a search? If your kid was sick and you weren’t sure whether to give her Motrin or Tylenol, what would you do to find out? That’s right, you’d search Google.
But this whole event will surely move off the first few pages of results eventually, won’t it? Not if the makers of Motrin don’t take active measures to repair their reputation on Google. The first page of search results for Comcast still has a link to a YouTube video of a technician who fell asleep on a customer’s couch, and that video was posted 3 years ago!
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