Google execs admit Twitter's winning real-time game

Google co-founder Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt have admitted that when it comes to the public's thirst for real-time, up-to-the-minute news and conversation, Twitter's beating them.

This was reported by the U.K.'s Guardian, as the two executives took the stage at Google's Zeitgeist conference in London.

"People really want to do stuff real time and I think they [Twitter] have done a great job about it," the Guardian quoted Page as saying. "I think we have done a relatively poor job of creating things that work on a per-second basis."

Google acquired one of Twitter's onetime competitors, Jaiku, in fall 2007. Back then, it was still early enough in Twitter's ascent that a competitor with a better product could've come from behind and beaten it--especially with Google's powerful backing. But earlier this year, amid company-wide cutbacks, Google halted most development on Jaiku.

After the Zeitgeist event, Schmidt was asked by the Guardian whether Google might just go ahead and buy Twitter.

"There is a presumption that somehow you cannot have multiple solutions that co-exist," Schmidt said. He then indicated that perhaps a partnership was more likely: "We do not have to buy everybody to work with them, the whole principle of the Web is people can talk to each other."

But don't expect Twitter to sign on as a big partner in Google's AdSense search ads service: Co-founder Biz Stone said earlier this week that the company does not plan to pursue an advertising-based revenue model.

[Remo_Williams]

Google Latitiude on mobiles, e.g. G1s are close on Twitter in terms of functionality. The foundation is there, I'd watch that area.

[orlandorr]

What exactly is Twitter good for? I'm latin and nobody here knows about Twitter. All my friends use Facebook and the Wall does the same thing as Twitter, and all everybody writes is crap anyways.

[r_anstett]

The big difference in Twitter and other social networks like Facebook is that with Facebook you are sharing with a restricted (private) number of people - friends and family. With Twitter you are sharing information with a much wider audience.

More indepth and personal - Facebook
Short and interesting - Twitter

We teach how to use Twitter to find interesting people and then use Friendfeed or other agregators to explore more about that person.

BOB

[kieranmullen]

Interesting is relative. I am eating, brushing my teeth, I am at the grocery store. If that floats your boat fine,,,

[Button Boy]

Twitter would be far more interesting if the content had quality. Hard to do that on impulse. BTW, the "w" is not pronounced (slient) in Twitter and the associated Tweets. Oh rats- I ran over my 140 character limit.

[krizhek]

Great thing about twitter is that I decide who is quality and whom is not. Others I follow suggest others to possibly follow. I search according to phrases to follow more people and soon I have a network of quality content.