Just to bring us all up to speed, Google Real Time Search launched last week and also announced partnerships with Facebook and MySpace. According to an article by Danny Sullivan, Google’s pulling in real time information from a variety of sources, including Twitter, Google News, Google Blog Search, FriendFeed, Jaiku, and others. Of course, all I’ve seen in my search results are some Twitter streams, and Sugarrae’s showed us how some unscrupulous people could use real time search to spam Google search results. All this leaves a lot of social media people hating it and me wondering if it’s really such a great thing…

My guess is that Google will begin to apply a filter to their search results that makes these real time results more relevant. And sometimes I forget, as a hardcore user of Google, and someone who’s patiently awaiting the Singularity, (you laugh, but we all know the Singularity is near–Microsoft’s researching it, and so are Google and NASA)…my point is, as a hardcore user, this real time search feature hardly seems newsworthy. But for the masses using Google, (and I mean the ones that aren’t tweeting all day), the whole Twitter stream in the search results is a great thing, a major breakthrough.  For me, well…it’s a lot less interesting than the fact that Google personalized search. This, coupled with the whole augmented reality type technology of Google Goggles, allowing Android users to perform search with images they take from their phones, tells me that not only is search going real time, it’s also going mobile, which is something every business should NOT be contemplating–they should be acting on.

The big picture on this is that the entire landscape of the Internet is changing, and fast! And how we interact with it through search is also changing. And that’s going to continue to get more interesting. If you find that whole concept as fascinating as I do, just take 18 minutes out of your day to listen to Gary Vaynerchuk’s philosophy about what’s happening at this time. According to him, "It’s big! Really big…and you need to figure out engagement. Otherwise you’re making a hyper mistake." And he’s not talking about creating a Twitter account and pushing out Tweets as advertising and calling it social media engagement.  All these changes that are happening at light speed are going to affect your business, and the question is, are you ready?

If you haven’t seen the video, and want to know more about how real time search is integrated into Google search results, just watch this video:

 So tell me, what do you think of Google real time search, do you like it, and what does it mean for your business?

Ralphm

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I’m obsessed with real time search! and I don’t think it’s just me (Google just announced social search), and in my last article, I talked about Twitter real time search and trends.  Of course, some people have their doubts about the viability of social search, but I believe real time search is only going to get bigger, and better. The primary basis for this belief is the fact that I see countless contenders battling for real time search dominance.  Consequently, I’ve been exploring different real time search options, and trying to figure out what the best tools are for managing real time conversations, particularly in regard to the website marketing services we offer clients.  Last week I was introduced to an interesting option I’d like to share: uberVU metrics and analytics.

What is uberVU?

Have you ever found yourself using social media and feeling a bit isolated from the conversation? Especially with Twitter.  You can see half the conversation, right? But often, you can’t see what other people are saying. That experience sometimes leaves me feeling empty.  Not to mention that half the conversations are taking place not just on Twitter, but on blogs and forums.  Well, uberVU is really trying to eliminate that empty feeling experience by bringing the full conversation into perspective.  Simply stated, and in their own words, uberVU lets you "find out what people are saying about brands, stories or events. And follow the comments all over the social web."

Real Time Search Interface

uberVU’s real time search uinterface is slick. A simple search allows you to see how many people are talking about a particular topic, and a nice little pie chart shows you where those conversations are taking place. Below that, a graph shows you exactly when the conversations were posted, allowing you to put it all into a time reference.  This feature will allow businesses to determine the relevance of the conversation to their marketing campaigns of today and tomorrow.

By creating an account and linking it to your social media accounts, you don’t have to leave uberVU to participate in the conversation, and I really like that. It’s a big time saver not having to click on a link, find the spot to comment, etc, etc.  All you have to do is hit reply in uberVU, enter your comment, and submit!  Wicked awesome!

The only drawback, if you can call it that, is the free account is going to brand your messages with a link to uberVU, a small price to pay for an awesome service. But if it’s a real concern of yours, all you have to do is upgrade your account to remove their branding.

uberVU Features

• Reply to Twitter users, blog comments, FriendFeed and more from within uberVU, and they send your message back on the right platform.
• Track conversations within a particular niche "community" (or multiple communites with an upgraded account) and receive email alerts.
• The uberVU widget lets you aggregate the conversations about your blog from all over the web, right there on your blog! How cool is that?
• Use the uberVU bookmarklet to track stories and converstations as you find them.
• Pricing – The free uberVU account comes with one community you can track, no exports and links to uberVU.com each time you use the reply functionality. The paid services range from $20-$150/month depending on what features you want.

I still want to know what you’re using for real time search.  So leave it in a comment!

Ralphm

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