According to this CNET report,  Twitter will feature a search algorithm which will be able to:

crawl the links included in tweets and begin to index the content of those pages. [...] Twitter Search will also get a “reputation” ranking system soon [...]

After all, it was easy to predict. Plenty of people has been wondering that this would have happened sooner or later.
The question is if it would be able to gain a tiny share of the search engine market, considering Google evergrowing power and

If they really want to go this way they should come to terms with two main issues:

Gain some content authority

They should get a rid of all those bots and try to better develop and organize a following system able to guarantee some sort of authority: too many people add friends randomly trying to get hopefully followed themselves. This can affect link reputation and ranking system, if they’re really keen to develop one. I guess this is the first issue the should deal with.

Get safe and make people feel safer

Hacking Twitter is a bloody joke. It’s unbelievable easy. They must deal with it and sort things out as soon as possible. No service can grow in the market if people do not feel safe enough to use it and share data.

However, Twitter is still able to seduce investors. I guess it’s the proof that its search model could really work anyway. New rumors are spreading about Apple considering investing some bucks on it.
Apparently this first quarter Apple’s financial result make people wonder what will be the next step: maybe buying Twitter or jump into the videogame bandwagon with Electronic Arts?

Whatever will be, Twitter has already gained a prominent position into the market, soon things will change, and Google will have to make its move.

Before going through any possible speculation about Twitter as a search engine, it is crucial to give a proper definition to Twitter itself.

What really is Twitter?

Instant messaging platform? Social network? None of the above?

The other day I bumped in what I reckon is the best definition up to date about Twitter. According to Kevin Ryan from Search Engine Watch:

Twitter is a search engine that indexes conversations about content

Going further in analyzing Twitter through this description, he also defines another crucial aspect:

Popularity isn’t determined by backlinking in the traditional SEO sense, but self-designated by the number of retweets and followers.

…which basically defines quality information, as for every search engine.

The Twitter Search Engine

So, if we realized what Twitter actually is, let’s take a look around its main features as a search engine.

The interesting thing though is that the search feature only appears at the very bottom of twitter.com. Moreover, it’s worth to check the advanced search feature, which has plenty of features for real time search.

Why are these feature not properly exploited yet? Do you think we’re gonna see a TwitterAdWords or TwitterAdsense anytime soon?

How much would you pay a friend for giving you a single advice for a movie?

Not much I guess. After all it’s just a few words. But try to see from the perspective of a business in which word-of-mouth is crucial to a long-term growth.

Netflix is giving away 1.000.000$ to anybody able to provide a fully working algorithm to give users reliable advice based on movie already seen.

It’s quite an interesting topic. No matter how much research we able to do but it’s really hard for a computer to beat our best friend reccomandation.

Here’s a more  detailed explanation but if you dare to go through a massive pdf with a proper scientific essay on the topic.

Btw, if you’re into movies and struggling to find out something cool, check the 10 best film search engines by CNET.

EVen if the hype generated by the released had been soon vanished (and its market share seem’s not improving at all), Google as just released a few tricks to make sure your websites will be displayed properly on Chrome.

I experienced some troubles with Chrome recently, Google has released this tricks right on time for me.

Since my MacBook is gone and it will be for a while I guess, I was force to come back to my old laptop, a Pentium IV with only 256megs of ram.

I’m currently running Windows XP Pro which is fine but Firefox is just sucking up all the resources making everything else unbereably slow.

Here’s a short list of a few lightweight browsers I tried out in the past days:

K-Meleon: so far, the very best lightweight browser for windows. Basically it has got all Firefox funcionalities minus add-ons and a slightly old look&feel. It’s open source and works with the Mozilla rendering engine. It’s multitab and has got basically everything the old mozilla had.

Google Chrome: it’s Google’s wonderboy, truly a lightweight champion. The only bad thing it’s that it is not stable, not enough for me at least. Still the fastest so far.

Flock 1.0: another Firefox spin-off, at least 3 times faster and lighter. Still to much of a Firefox, which means huge memory leaks if left standing by. It’s more focused on social media but I noticed it is also quite lightweight.

23/03/09 update:

I just bumped into two other browser which even if they’re not exactly the most lightweight they may run smoothly on a machine with limited resources.

I’ve just found another one which is worth to be mentioned. Maxthon: originally born as an attempt to tweak Internet Explorer, its features and popularity escalated to a point in which is got funding from Google and one of Skype’s founder. It’s Classic Version its tiny and lightweight with a full set of features and that’s the one you should go for if you’re willing to spare some resources. It might be unknown to the most but is the most popular web browser in china. Give it a try and see if 186million users do actually know about web browsers.

AvantBrowser: according to its creators it’s the fastest browser ever. It uses the Internet Explorer shell built in windows (hence you gotta check your Internet Explorer out first).It’s largely inspired to Opera and it has got plenty of feature right out of the box, which makes it a really good alternative to using to many apps in a system with limited resources. It deserves a try.