October 6th, 2009 § View Comments § permalink
I never believed I would see the day when Google was described as archaic, old, not forward thinking enough. How times change in worldwidewebworld. However, there is a constant, ever increasing voice saying they are and they have missed the boat in “real time” search. Real time is interesting, it taps into the conciousness of the nation, the world even. It taps into what the public is talking about now, what they are really feeling, so it will be massively exciting in the run up to the World Cup and the General Elections in 2010.
Google on the other hand taps into our memory, our flow of actions that have previously happened, but which are not happening or potentially not happening right now. As such there is a certain sense of reliability with Google, which you cannot get with real-time search. We all know the negative stories about Twitter and Swine Flu, social escalation of a crisis which could have easily been quashed if you followed some of Google’s cracking Swine flu maps.
The debate rages on. I for one am going to continue to track trends and cool stuff on Twitter, whilst searching for what I really want on Google.
September 10th, 2009 § View Comments § permalink
The truth is, there is no simple way of doing this. The tools that I have dealt with to date have been consistent in one thing, not getting the completely right answer the first time around. I don’t actually think this is a fault of the tool or the person running the tool. Apart from in one case. Its not even a fault of the brief.
The problem comes from the data revealing more possible connotations each time you run it. Another influencer, another subject we hadn’t considered, more data than before. Because conversations are happening all the time and being started all the time in known and unknown places, the data set from buzz technology consistently shifts as well.
Therefore, getting buzz monitoring right is difficult and takes alot of manual intervention. It seems to me to pay to take a step back from the data and have a think about how it pans out, analyse it for yourself, then get the client involved. What do they think? What is important to them? Are we both trying to get the same things out of it?
I think the following diagram best represents the way buzz monitoring should work, a reduced emphasis on the buzz tool’s owners, and more emphasis on client and agency. Essentially, this is a top heavy approach but one which I think gives most benefit.
