The Twitter-Google deal to bring more tweets into Google Search went live today, displaying more tweets in a new and more prominent way on mobile devices. Below, how the new implementation looks for a variety of examples.
Up To The Second: Eurovision 2015
In a great test of the real-time bonafides of the new product, searching for “Eurovision 2015,” the giant European singing competition, produced tweets that were up to the second in the first hour of the show’s telecast. Also notable: many of the tweets displayed were from users with low follower counts, like this one with only 143:
The Bachelorette: Two Different Results
Using hashtags seems to make a difference. A search for “#thebachelorette” displayed the “Popular on Twitter” carousel in the top position:
Whereas searching for “The Bachelorette,” only pulled up a standard search result for tweets about the hashtag. You’ll notice that that result showed up below, the ABC reality show’s official Facebook page:
Some Lag For Real-Time News
Results for news searches, which you would think would be fairly consistent, given Twitter’s current events strength and Google’s news chops, were a bit spotty. A search for “LA minimum wage” three hours after the Los Angeles City Council voted to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15, didn’t trigger the carousel. Neither did a search for “Waco shooting,” looking for information about Monday’s deadly biker gang melee in Texas, even though many people were still tweeting about it. On the other hand, a search for “Airbag recalls” triggered the feature:
Searches that also were trending topics in Twitter tended to be included, like this search digging into news about Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari:
Politics Gets Special Treatment, Sometimes
For politicians, the feature has been adjusted in many cases perhaps to tame the conversation. Instead of tweets from citizens, journalists or pundits about Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz, Google is displaying a carousel of the most recent tweets from the candidate (or potential candidate).
Not all of the announced or unannounced 2016 presidential hopefuls get this treatment. Rick Perry, for instance, only merits a standard link to his Twitter profile well down the page. And searches for Rand Paul and Rick Santorum each displayed the “Popular on Twitter” widget.
Brand Accounts Get A Nice Welcome Mat
Brands with active Twitter accounts get very nice display, when a user includes Twitter in the search query. Doing that triggers the Twitter carousel, showing the account’s most recent tweets.
For more about the deal and the implementation on Google, see also our post on Search Engine Land: The Google-Twitter Deal Goes Live, Giving Tweets Prominent Placement In Google’s Results.
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