On Tuesday, we reported on Google's major revamp of its search service. That revamp included adding information to search results generated from Google's own Google+ social network. Now AllThingsD.com reports that in a rather unusual and public move, one of Google's rivals, Twitter, is speaking out against these changes:
Twitter is concerned that Google's changes would not allow "tweets" from its hundreds of millions of users to show up in Google's new search results. Its full statement is as follows:
For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.
Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.
We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.
In response, Google posted a note on its own Google+ account that said, "We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer (https://goo.gl/chKwi), and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions." Ouch.
21 Comments - Add comment