Twitter Set to Radically Improve Search and Discovery

Twitter hasn't always had a very well defined identity. If anything, it let its users define its identity. That's clearly a good thing, but it's probably a good idea to have some notion of "who" you are and what are you doing. Twitter has settled into the role of "information network," i.e. a way for people to share thoughts, ideas and things they find interesting online.

But another facet has been growing strong lately is the connection to media. Celebrities have had a great run on Twitter, but it's more than that, big events on TV are always spilling out on Twitter, the EURO 2012 cup being just the last example.

Twitter may seem like a communication tool and it certainly is that, but it's much more. A big part of Twitter is discovery. Yet, much of the "discovery" side of the site happens ad-hoc, driven by users, like much else at Twitter.

Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but it is a problem if it's just the users that steer your product towards what they want to get out of it and you're just coming along for the ride, trying to adapt to what the users are already doing rather than providing them with tools that anticipate their needs.

This long preamble leads to an "announcement" made by engineering manager Pankaj Gupta who wrote, "Search & discovery in @twitter set to change forever after tmrw. Team - congrats and enjoy the enormity of ur impact few understand today!"

Twitter hasn't said anything officially yet, but it does seem like the search and discovery part of the service is getting a much needed revamp. Search has always been one of Twitter's weak points. Granted, it's a big challenge, what's "relevant" on the site changes by the hour or even by the minute. Still, it's not an unsolvable problem.

The discovery portion, to which Twitter is now dedicating an entire section, isn't really living up to its name. But there is a lot of potential there, Twitter could really be much better if it figured out a way to connect its users to people they're going to enjoy following.

Via: Twitter Set to Radically Improve Search and Discovery