A Bomb in Oslo? What Google Lost by Ending Real-Time Search
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Nothing.
Instead of substantive contribution here, Mr. Jackson gives us simple-minded insinuations: if only Google had thought harder about how people use Twitter to talk real-time about the disasters, they would have realized what they would be missing out on.
Right, Mr. Jackson: as if there is a person in tech who missed the Egyptian riots. As if we all don't know about the thousands of Syrians who named their kid "Facebook".
The fact is, if Google did "end" their relationship with Twitter on purpose, then the real question here is why they would do that. Sticking your head into a search bar, complaining that you can't find Twitter results, and then pretending like no one else notices this is not an argument.
On the other hand, if you lather it up with a recent tragedy, it becomes journalism, doesn't it?
Off with their head I say. Google-s I mean.
But I suspect it's only on the front page because it's a topical (and terrible) news story that couldn't be on the homepage without some slight tech-angle to make it HN valid.
Cynical.
A few pictures I took of the area, about 1-2 blocks away from the explosion: http://twitpic.com/photos/tallanvor
Of course, the gym I go to is going to be closed this weekend (they're even closer to the blast site than my office), but they've already posted that they'll be open again on Monday, so I have hope that Oslo - and Norway as a whole - won't let this change their society.
Edit: This comment generated more debate than I expected, and I should have made it a little more detailed in the first place. I didn't mean to start a discussion on the type of information appropriate to HN.
It hardly needs to be stated that more than one reaction is possible simultaneously, and we don't need to spend the rest of our lives lamenting the event. However I think the headline would be better if it acknowledged that people have been seriously injured, i.e. if it was something more like 'Oslo tragedy highlights absence of RTS information on Google'. The way it stands now it's like writing a headline on the evening of 9/11 talking about the heat resistance of concrete.
I accept HN just won't be my one-stop solution for major news (I may not like it, but that's a different story). My comment was just a probable explanation as to why the headline sounded insensitive.
More "Researchers develop tattoo that monitors glucose levels" and less "iOS 5 beta 4 is out," please!
As far as it being insensitive, it's only like that if you feel everyone should mourn all the time for the thousands of tragic incidents that occur. Personally I would find life much less satisfying if I was busy being sad all the time.
And as for the article, it raises a highly valid point, google forsook a better system for one that isn't fully featured and as robust. I tend to think they did this so they can implement their own system, whether greed or control being the reason it stands to say that users will want the best, someone therefore should be pointing out stuff like this.
Actually, the author of the article knew that something had happened in Oslo, but not what. That's exactly the kind of situation where news search is useful. He wants information on current events; news search is where I would expect to find that.
Some of my friends were in streets near the exposion while the windows exploded and they were quite shaken up.
Lots of sources, perhaps none of them accurate, but tall of them together very informative, all very close to the action, and in real time, that is something impressive. But most importantly, it is something we will never get from traditional media.
Why Google has let this kind of service slip is beyond me.
Incidentally Google News has been very useful in locating more official accounts.
I don't understand why its so difficult for the author to visit google news or press the news button to do a news search. Legitimate media beats twitter speculation.
Do we really know that? Couldn't it have been Twitter which didn't want to continue the relationship?
As Twitter continues to work with other companies, I think we can be pretty sure it was Google's choice.
Since Google didn't turn around and immediately release a real-time Google+ search method, I think it's pretty safe to assume that this was entirely business related. It doesn't make much sense for Google to unilaterally kill the feature without having something to replace it.
It's also important to note that Twitter's contracts may not have expired with the other companies, or they were able to reach an agreement that both sides agreed to. Considering that Google was probably using a fairly considerable amount of Twitter's server time(and possibly bandwidth) to make the real-time search possible, I think that it's pretty safe to assume that Twitter wanted more money than Google was willing to pay.
It's also possible that Google wanted more or a better level of access than Twitter was willing to give. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll ever know the exact reasons why this has happened, because of all the NDAs that have to be around the actual contracts.
Either way, I'm still not sure that it's entirely Google's fault. At best, like any business deal that goes sour, both sides are at fault.
Seriously, some stories do not have any technological aspect and I find stories like this to be extremely disrespectful of the people who had their lives turned upside down by this incident!
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-BUq73ENhYFk/Til_cwxIJeI/A...
Live streaming from BBC/NRK http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14254705
I think what The Atlantic is complaining about here is more that without the Twitter stream, Google has lost access to a signal that they may want to start crawling around looking for stuff.
Given the alleged amounts of robot traffic on Twitter I wonder if they dealt with robo-tweeting trying to drive them to put particular sites up in their news page.