Why are other companies always making Twitter features better than Twitter does? This is especially true for search. I don’t know if you recall Twitter Search from a few years ago, but it was pretty bad. The company knew this, so it bought Summize, which was doing a much better job at allowing users to search Twitter.
Since then, Twitter has made numerous improvements to search, but it still hasn’t been perfect. Now, Topsy aims to one up Twitter in search, as it has announced that it has indexed every tweet back to the first one from Jack Dorsey, and made them searchable. You can start your searching at Topsy.com.
The company writes on its blog:
Topsy has always been great for helping brands, agencies, and consumers extract meaningful signals from the social media noise. And today, we’re making a good thing even better.
Topsy.com, Topsy Pro, and Topsy APIs now offer the entire history of public tweets on Twitter, dating back to the first-ever tweet by Jack Dorsey in March 2006. (Want to check it out for yourself? Visit Topsy.com to try it free, or set up a free 14-day trial of Topsy Pro to try out our most advanced tools for discovery, metrics, and insights.)
According to The New York Times, we’re talking about upwards of 425 billion tweets. This includes photos and videos.
Twitter may find that search will become more important than ever to its user experience, as it moves toward new ecommerce endeavors. Last week, the company announced the hiring of former Tickemaster boss Nathan Hubbard as its new Head of Commerce, and he will be tasked with making online shopping something people do on Twitter. Search should be key in making that happen.