So I'm puzzling how to make Twitter more useful to me. Up until now, it's been the equivalent of a school science project. Interesting, but random.
Random in terms of what some twits tweet about. The good stuff is quite good. The bad stuff is a waste of time. Twitter's good, but there's a way to make it great. All we need is a smart developer or two to take it to the next step.
Over the course of any 24-hour period, the dreck outweighs the interesting feeds by a 70-30 margin. Of course, this is all subjective and nobody wants a hall monitor to decide what's worthy and what's not. Some people really find it useful to know that so-and-so had a useful business lunch or is off to get interviewed by a TV reporter. My preference is to let a thousand Tweets twitter.
But in Twitter's current incarnation, I'm reduced to passively watching a computerized version of Internet TV. Whatever comes over the transom, I consume--whether it's something I passionately care about or is utterly uninteresting. And as I continue to add names to "follow," it's only a matter of time before the noise-to-signal ratio heads off the charts.
As an aside, I recently added names on the Twitterholic.com Top 100 Twitterholics to expand my Twitter circle. That's only making things worse. I'm interested in following some of the people on the list, but the grouping is pretty much a popularity contest based on the number of followers. It would be a big help if I knew ahead of time what each of these folks liked to twit about.
But that's not asking for the moon. What about finding a way to allow Twitter users to subscribe to followers based around interests or profession? I'd love to go up to Twitter and select individual channels where the odds are that most of what's under discussion is relevant to me.
If there are technical reasons why this is asking the impossible, tell me. Sure, it's a different animal, but technology already lets us get a handle on the daily information flow via subscriptions to RSS feeds or through smart aggregators like iGoogle. So, for instance, I read a daily blog operated by Juan Cole, who is a professor of Middle Eastern history. Cole may publish the occasional post that leaves me flat. But over time I've come to trust his judgment about what's important, and most of his writing appeals to my interests.
Even if he's only off to a business lunch or to do a TV interview. :)
Earlier in the week, ComScore reported that Google's paid clicks dropped 7 percent between December and January. That was enough to panic already nervous shareholders who proceeded to dump Google's stock in one of Wall Street's (increasingly common) panics.
But Friday morning the Internet ratings agency issued a brief statement meant to contradict the impression that it believes Google has sprung a leak.
"...the evidence suggests that the softness in Google's paid click metrics is primarily a result of Google's own quality initiatives that result in a reduction in the number of paid listings and, therefore, the opportunity for paid clicks to occur. In addition, the reduction in the incidence of paid listings existed progressively throughout 2007 and was successfully offset by improved revenue per click.
"It is entirely possible, if not likely, that the improved revenue yield will continue to deliver strong revenue growth in the first quarter. Separately, there is no evidence of a slowdown in consumers clicking on paid search ads for rest of the U.S. search market, which comprises 40 percent of all searches."
That's one heck of a circumlocution: Maybe it's me but it recalled that signature line from the Wizard of Oz: "Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain." For the record, ComScore's PR department told me that it decided to publish the statement because journalists were drawing incorrect conclusions from the data. The spokesman also said Google had not pressured the ratings agency to act.
ComScore's "statement of analysis" was good enough to convince CNBC's Silicon Valley reporter Jim Goldman, whose reliably chirpy optimism about tech stocks seems to gain in the face of each massive sell-off. On his blog, he wrote:
"Yet even ComScore itself is re-evaluating its own data; not saying it got it wrong, but saying instead that the big January drop might come from improvements in Google's click programs and not because of some big drop off in business. ComScore says that since it's not tracking the same kind of drop off in business at other search engines, the issues might be from Google click improvements alone, and not some macro-economic factors instead."
That settles it then. Happy days are back? Well, not exactly. Goldman is part of the perma-bull crowd which predominates on CNBC. This bunch rarely gets out ahead of an economic trend--especially when the indicators start pointing south. I'm not arguing that Google's franchise is in deep trouble. At least, not yet. But who still believes that the company's search-based advertising business will remain intact in the face of a recession? Henry Blodget over at Silicon Alley Insider sure isn't buying it:
"This week, as analysts have rushed to check in with search engine marketers, we have heard reports of weakness in financial services, real-estate, and other categories. Athough Google's click improvement programs are almost certainly contributing to the paid-click fall-off, it seems unlikely that they account for all of it. We therefore continue to view the ComScore report as supporting the theory that Google is exposed to economic weakness."
Since the company went public in 2004, Google has become a Zelig-like metaphor, for bulls and bears. Both sides project what they want. The optimists justified a $700-plus stock price because they expected the good times to continue. The pessimists questioned why you would value a stock that highly with the housing and financial sectors of the economy blowing up and no end in sight. Where the bulls saw clear skies, the bears saw clouds. And so far, there's little argument about who is being proved right as of now.
For most of his tenure, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has had an easy time of it. If he's as good a manager as his press clips claim, now he'll have a chance to earn that reputation. History may not repeat itself exactly but if the economy slips further, a lot of companies will suffer more pain before the selling comes to an end.
Including Google.
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