Both Twitter and Google help you find information you're interested in. The internet is massive so sorting and serving useful content to a user is valuable.
Google finds this information based on keywords. Twitter finds this information by looking at conversations and people you are interested in.
Saying Google and Twitter are in no way comparable isn't helpful. They are comparable though certainly different!
Google has better information on your preferences and exactly what you're interested in. That doesn't mean Twitter doesn't have good information.
If you follow a ton of yoga instructors then Twitter can feature yoga ads in your feed. While not as targeted as Google ads they still provide value to the user and the advertiser.
I don't want to get into an argument, just wanted to explain where I was coming from.
Twitter lets you discover what happens in areas that you might be interested in if someone wrote about it. It's a newsfeed for that specific reason. It require a tweet to happen.
Google allow you to find exactly what you are looking for whether someone tweeted it or not in all the content they can get a hold of including twitter.
Your search term on twitter does not show you intent, search on google does.
You are comparing two completely different things here.
Furthermore EVERYONE who uses google search use it to find things they are looking for when they are most interested in it. Only some people use twitter search terms to figure out who on twitter has something to say, mostly about themselves.
People don't use twitter as a search engine but as a discovery engine the difference is hugely different for so many reasons I am not sure why you keep insisting on them being the same.
I haven't insisted that they are the same! And I agree with your descriptions of both companies. I didn't mention twitter search, I was actually only thinking about the Twitter feed.
All I'm saying is that at a high level both services let you find content you're interested in. That's it. It doesn't contrast with what you've said above. They do it in very different ways and for very different use cases.
A twitter feed isn't random though. You choose who you follow on Twitter, if the links they provide are unhelpful you unfollow them. It is more random than Google but still tailored to your preferences.
I think you're hung up on the "stare at" wording. I interpreted the words to mean "use" - hope that clarifies my point.
People use twitter in many different ways. You are assuming people carefully select who they follow. Many people dont, they follow all sorts of people often based on one tweet. You have no way of knowing what other stuff they are going to write about because it's people. Furthermore a lot of people follow thousands or hundreds of people and are simply not able to follow everything thats going on in their feed.
Compared to a google search result it is completely in the opposite end
I am not hung up on anything. I am saying that your comparison is as wrong as comparing DuckDuckGo with an RSS feed. There is so much noise even with the things you carefully select.
Compared to a google search where I am going specifically for something and is showing my intent.
I don't go to google to see whats going on, I go there to find something very specific.
You said that twitter doesnt provide value "because they stare at the feed only to find something that then lives somewhere else."
When you search Google you're finding things that live somewhere else. I'm simply pointing out that you don't need to host the content the user is looking for to provide value.
I'm not saying the companies are the same. I'm not saying Twitter can be successful the same way Google has. I'm agreeing with all your points besides the fact that you need to host content to provide value.
No I said their problem with monetization for twitter was that people don't spend enough time on twitter but instead on the places that tweets lead to.
In other words they provide plenty of value they are just not able to make a living from it.
Instead they should get more people to stay on their own platform by allowing more content to be created there just like Facebook is.
I agree getting more content on twitter is an good option for montetization. It might even be the best one.
I brought up Google because time spent on a site doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot more ad revenue. What matters is serving up useful ads that provide value to the user and advertisers. Google is great at that - Twitter isn't because of many reasons you've stated.
So maybe twitter should be trying to improve their ad program to serve better ads. If they can't do that well (no way they could do it as well as Google) then perhaps increasing time users spend on Twitter is their best option.
I only wanted to point out that the solution is not self evident. Just because people are using a service to find content hosted elsewhere does not mean it can't make money. The problem might be that Twitter is bad at finding ads people want to see.
