Twitter instead of Google?

Well I know that there are a lot of people still very resistant to using Twitter.  However, even if you have no intention of ever sending tweets, you need to know about and use Twitter.  I have been using Twitter for about 2 years.  Today, many companies and even government agencies and officials use Twitter as a primary means of direct communication to and from constituents.  The U.S. Department of Labor, the EEOC, The State Department, and more recently the Justice Department have all gotten on Twitter.

Even if you choose not to subscribe to any feeds, you can still use Twitter to Search the internet for interesting articles and discussions.

I am a huge fan of Google’s search engine.  Google’s advanced search template is very helpful.  However, there are certain research tasks that will yield better results by doing a Twitter Search, particularly up to the minute information and news stories from other countries.

Next time you are doing a Google search, try the same search here and see what you think: http://search.twitter.com/advanced

If there is an item you want to monitor, you can convert your twitter search to an RSS feed and subscribe to it using your feed reader.  While you can also do that with a Google Alert, the types of results you will get will be much different.  If you do not use or know what an RSS reader is check out http://wlerik.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/must-have-apps/