Eye-tracking Proves Real-Time Search Not Useful
OneUpWeb recently released the results of an eye-tracking study on Google’s new real-time results integrated into SERPs—and it looks like the search giant might have just wasted $15M (the estimated cost of Google’s deal with Twitter).
The study segmented web users into two groups: consumers and information foragers. It took consumers 7.09 seconds to look at the real-time results, even though they’re listed just below the news results and before the organic results. In fact, they scrolled below the fold to view the image results before they fixated on the real-time area, the eleventh area they focused on.
Information foragers took slightly longer to turn to the real-time results: 7.39 seconds. It was the thirteen area their eyes focused on—but the first 12 areas were all just above the real-time results in the news results. (The search task here was to research a selected current news item using the search engine of choice—for 89% of all participants, that was Google.) (Side note: I’m not sure why the times in the above graph are so much higher than the numbers OneUpWeb also provided that I used in these paragraphs.)
The second search task was segmented by group—the consumers were to look for a product they were considering to buy for themselves or for someone else as a gift. Information foragers were to again look for information on a current news topic. Interestingly, in this second set, consumers were five seconds faster than information foragers to focus on real-time results.
Meanwhile, 20% of consumers and 30% of information foragers actually clicked on real-time results, as opposed to 69% of consumers and 60% of information foragers that clicked on the top 5 results excluding real-time.
I’ve long argued that real-time results will only be helpful for a very small, select set of data—and for that set, most people would know to go to Twitter or Facebook in the first place anyway. I’m not the only one. The Guardian’s Charles Arthur points to several others who feel the same way, most notably Nick Carr, who sardonically chronicles the efforts to organize the web’s information around 140-character ephemera.
And yet Google insists that this information is useful and must be foisted upon the user. Aruther quotes Marissa Mayer last summer:
We think the real-time search is incredibly important, and the real-time data that’s coming online can be super-useful in terms of finding out whether – something like, is this conference today any good? Is it warmer in San Francisco than it is in Silicon Valley? You can actually look at tweets and see those types of patterns emerge, so there’s a lot of useful information about real-time interactions that we think ultimately will really affect search.
Apparently users don’t quite agree yet.
What do you think? Are real-time results useful?
Collecta Launches Mobile Version Of Real-Time Search Engine
Collecta has just announced the launch of a mobile version of its real-time search engine. The mobile site is available at m.collecta.com.
Like it main site, Collecta mobile includes real-time news, photos, and status updates from more than 10 million content sources — from Twitter to Flickr and CNN and blogs. The mobile site is available [...]
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Yahoo TimeSense: New Trends Tool Previewed At SMX West
Today’s “Real Time Search & The Major Search Engines” session at SMX West took an interesting twist when Yahoo’s Ivan Davtchev took the stage to discuss his company’s efforts in the real-time search space.
There was some quiet chuckling when Davtchev showed screenshots of a competitor’s tool, Google Trends, as a way of determining what queries [...]
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Google’s Real Time Search Now Shows Facebook Pages Status
While everyone is concerned about just how Google will eventually take over the world and implant chips in everyone so they can search for your real time position at any time in real time for real information (do you get the sarcasm here?) there is one area where Google is not going to do as well as the competition (read: bing). That is real time search results for Facebook.
Google has announced that Facebook Pages status updates have started to be included in real time search results. This is added to their addition of Twitter and MySpace info to search results as well. Where Google is not going to be effective, though, is Facebook and Venture Beat’s Digital Beat tells us why
The key thing to remember, however, is that Google has much more limited access to Facebook’s real-time data than its competitor, Bing. Microsoft has deeper ties to the social network, as an investor in Facebook and as a search provider for the site. Microsoft has the ability to index public status updates, while Google’s access is limited to updates from Pages, which are vehicles for marketing rather than personal content.
While this may be seen as a disadvantage by some, I don’t necessarily see it that way. I go to a search engine to get information about different subjects of interest, products, business data and general entertainment. Honestly, I don’t want to see personal Facebook updates in any search engine. It’s just creepy. I think that updates from Facebook Pages, however, can be of help and it doesn’t have any creepiness factor to it. It’s marketing information for the most part so that can only get as weird as everyday marketing can get. No harm there.
Now, I know that this is just my opinion so it would be good to hear from others. Considering all the flak that Facebook has received about privacy should personal updates be included in search results for bing since many are likely still clueless about just how much of their information is public? Do you want to see that information?
Last Call – SMX West in Silicon Valley Starts Next Tuesday
It’s time. Search Marketing Expo – SMX West begins next Tuesday March 2nd at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Register now to reserve your place.
Your investment in coming to SMX West will pay off many times. You’ll be satisfied; we guarantee it.
Check out the agenda. Conference chairs Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman, and the all-star [...]
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Google Real Time Search Now Shows Updates From Facebook Fan Pages
Google’s Real Time Search has gained a new data source, updates from Facebook fan pages. Google had announced a deal to list this information back in December, and now it’s finally being implemented. Google has tweeted the news.
See our detailed guide, Google Launches Real Time Search Results to understand how Google Real Time Search works, [...]
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Yahoo and Twitter Announce Partnership
Better late than never is what they say right? Everyone else and their brother have made their deal with Twitter so Yahoo doing so only makes sense. What is interesting is that while this kind of announcement should be a big deal it comes off as sounding a little “after the fact” which, unfortunately, seems to be how Yahoo is perceived more and more these days.
To be fair, Yahoo has more properties to tie Twitter into so the deal is likely to be more complex than the “real time search” deals that have been struck with Google and Microsoft. Yahoo’s Yodel Anecdotal blog sings the deal’s praises
What does this mean for you? Very soon, you will be able to see your Twitter feed on Yahoo! just as easily as you use Yahoo! to consume all of the other great content you love from across the Web. Through today’s partnership, along with our recently announced Facebook relationship, Yahoo! is giving your online social life wings to help you stay in touch with the people and things you care about most across the Web. It’s part of our strategy to ensure that Yahoo! delivers the people and things that matter most to you!
Want to see your friends’ latest Twitter posts? Or update your Twitter feed with stories and content from Yahoo!? Or check out trending topics and public updates? You no longer need to stop what you’re doing to see what’s going on with your Twitterverse — you’ll be able to do it all from Yahoo!.
This kind of a play is probably most important to Yahoo because now that it is not a search engine (although the average person may never have a clue that Yahoo doesn’t actually do the search behind the scenes which is for another discussion). The social side of the web is about content and that’s where Yahoo is hanging their hat for the future. In their blog post they are showing their hand that while they are making this announcement they are not quite there yet. Here is what we can look forward to
Coming Soon: Read your personal Twitter feeds directly from Yahoo!’s many products and properties, including the homepage, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports, and others — anywhere you can see Yahoo! Updates across our network.
Coming Soon: Update your Twitter status and share content from Yahoo! in your Twitter stream — we’ve made it even easier to share what’s going on with your friends and followers on Yahoo! and Twitter.
Coming Soon: Whenever you produce social actions on any website (like comments on articles, ratings, buzzes on Yahoo! Buzz) that you’ve allowed to appear on Yahoo! Updates, those actions can also be shared automatically with your friends on Twitter. (Pssst: Publishers and developers interested in learning more about Yahoo! Updates, including publishing directly into it or using Yahoo! Buzz or the Yahoo! Application Platform as ways of driving social traffic to your site, look here [http://developer.yahoo.com/updates], here [http://buzz.yahoo.com/publisher/about], and here [http://developer.yahoo.com/homepage].)
Coming Soon: Yahoo! media properties like News, Finance, Entertainment, and Sports will include real-time public Twitter updates, allowing you to get a quick pulse-check on topics, trending and otherwise.
Available Today: Yahoo! Search users will immediately see real-time Twitter results starting today.
So there are a lot of changes coming down the line for Yahoo. The question still remains though whether these are enough to keep Yahoo as a relevant player in the space.
How do you use Yahoo today and does this look attractive enough to make you more of a user in the future?
Google Adds MySpace To Real-Time Results & Images Site Command Updates
Google confirmed two different discussions taking place in the webmaster and seo community over the past few days.
The first is that MySpace results are now included in Google’s Real Time search results feature. In addition, Google launched real-time search in Russian and Japanese.
The second is that Google has updated their site [...]
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Holy 1999: MySpace in Google Search (Oh, with Real Time)
Buzzy buzz buzz. Google would really like to keep us from thinking about PAY NO ATTENTION Buzz TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, and old pal MySpace is here to help: the real time search deal the two discussed in December is now live. Oh boy, oh boy, real time updates from that cutting edge social MySpace right in Google!
Hm? What’s that? Is 2010 and Google’s had real-time results from social networks including Twitter and Facebook for months?
Oh. Much less cool 
.
Yep, as they said a while ago, Google’s using MySpace’s real time API to import real time updates (they do that on MySpace?) into selected SERPs. I’d go out looking for these results in the wild, but somehow I think they’re pretty hard to find. Even when I look for updates on news and current events in Google, I seldom see the real time results (or maybe I just don’t scroll down). Luckily, MySpace provides a few examples for me:
I love the Olympics. Every (other) year, I think, “Meh, I don’t really care about the Olympics,” and then I get sucked in and watch them obsessively. (“Go, go, person I’ve never heard of, representing a country I don’t care about, in a sport I’ve never seen before! Win!”) And I’m super glad that I can see what MySpacers think about the events. (Not. Did you read those comments?)
Um, anyway, I like that MySpace’s integration with Google is so flawless that the best way to get their real-time results is to actually include “MySpace” in the query. I suppose that’ll keep extraneous social results from showing up in my SERPs, though, so I’m happy 
.
On the other hand, it is convenient if you want to know what people are saying about a topic on MySpace. I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d want to, but . . . you know, it could happen.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to oh-so-pertinent results from MySpace coming to a SERP near you?
Focused on PPC? SEO Your Thing? New to Search? Personalize Your Learning – from Beginner to Expert – at SMX West
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