Google Loses Access to Twitter Stream, Suspends Realtime Search
mashable.com
mashable.com
I noted a [deleted] post at the bottom of this thread, where the replies indicate that "Twitter couldn't have known about G+", hence I guess the [deleted] post had similar sentiments to me. Google having social aspirations has been well-known for a long time. I could very much imagine Twitter writing a contract which says that the stream was only available to Google for as long as Google wasn't directly competing with Twitter. Google couldn't sign such a contract. Google+ is direct Twitter competition.
Google sees this feature as advantageous to Twitter, just as much as Twitter sees it as advantageous to Google. Negotiates to extend the contract could have failed for any number of reasons.
I thought that was an important point in the original story[1], but Mashable didn't copy and paste that far down
[1] http://searchengineland.com/as-deal-with-twitter-expires-goo...
Alas, I don't think they were anywhere close to doing that with the real time search anyway.
Can we please avoid this sort of sensationalism?
The subtext seems to be about as clear a reason as you can hope for from a giant corporation's PR dept.
Exactly the same. The quotes offer no evidence as to the motivation.
Example: "x website is down"
Yes, I think they meant #-tag
Hash bang (#!) is used to specify to the operating system where to find the binary to execute a script.
(Yes, my question indicates a very slight amount of bias!)
I used to do consulting for a company (LocatePLUS) that bought databases from different sources and then linked them. They sold this as a service to law enforcement and private investigators on a per query basis.
Also, unrelated to your reply but... while I understand how people might personally like Google (or Apple, or MS, or whatever), but business is just business, shouldn't be a religion or a sport. People should see beyond the "I like that company".
I definitely see Google as a business and know that circumstances can change with a change in management or operating environment; there is no way around that though. In my opinion we can either fight big companies and hope to have the government or other large companies keep them in check or we can try to help shape the environment and support companies that further our best interests.
The main differentiating factor in this case is their competitors are focused primarily on solving one problem, whereas Google is attempting to solve a multitude of problems in an attempt to win through convergence. That is to say, their solutions may not be as polished, but they are all in one place, presented to you in an accessible and convenient matter.
But that's not the point I tried to make. Based on the post, my opinion was that Google did not want to renew the deal with twitter (and vice versa) which is strange. They are at war already with everybody else (ms, apple, oracle, facebook) and don't need another enemy.
When the Firehose was enabled, it was not surprising to see GoogleBot immediately after a new link was posted via Twitter.
Did anybody find them useful? Or is maybe that's the reason Google is letting that go?
It's too bad because it's clear an enormous development effort had gone into making it possible.