How to Search Twitter

Vicky Ludas Orlofsky Dr. Lopatovska

Online Searching April 5, 2012

What is Twitter?

 A microblogging social network founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone

 Members can post "tweets" of up to 140 characters directing them to specific people via the @ symbol, linking them to specific topics with the # symbol, or releasing them to the world at large

 Direct messages are also available but these are not open to the public nor searchable by anyone other than the user

 As of February/March 2012, 92.5 million+ users a month sending 340 million tweets every day (Source: Quantcast.com, Twitter)

Who Tweets?

According to Quantcast (U.S. demographics), Twitter users compared to the average internet users are…

Female 18-34 Parents Well-off Not college-educated African-American or Hispanic

Searching Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/search-home

Can also be reached at twitter.com/search or search.twitter.com

Search Operators

Operators allow a more specific search:   people

  from:   to:

  location   near:   within:

  time   since:   until:

  result type   filter:   include:

  source:   language

  lang:  *but this option is not

included in the operators nor is a language code available

#

@

:) :( ?

Advanced Search: http://twitter.com/#!/search-advanced

Search operators as

natural language

@People Search

  The @verified

account is a list of all verified (identity confirmed

by Twitter) accounts

 Of the 140 million

+ users, 20,169 are currently verified

 When searching

for a politician,

entertainer, journalist, or other notable figure,

make sure their

account has been

verified to ensure

credibility

Twitter and Search Engines

 Bing: “Social” search which searches Facebook and Twitter in real time and can be narrowed to either  Not obvious, located in the “Explore” menu  Searches by keyword, also lists “Trending Topics”

  Google: no “Social”-type search   But you can site search [site:twitter.com “phrase”] will look for the phrase

within Twitter   Differences - not in real time, can’t be narrowed to tweets OR people, just tweets

AND people, and usually just people (even when searching for a #keyword)

  Yahoo: almost as Twitter-friendly as Bing; keyword searches will return recent tweets if applicable

Bing http://www.bing.com/social

Twitter and Search Engines

  Bing: “Social” search which searches Facebook and Twitter in real time and can be narrowed to either   Not obvious, located in the “Explore” menu   Searches by keyword, also lists “Trending Topics”

 Google: no “Social”-type search

 But you can site search [site:twitter.com “phrase”] will look for the phrase within Twitter

 Can’t be narrowed to tweets OR people, just tweets AND people, and usually just people (even when searching for a #keyword)

  Yahoo: almost as Twitter-friendly as Bing; keyword searches will return recent tweets if applicable

Google http://www.google.com

Twitter and Search Engines

  Bing: “Social” search which searches Facebook and Twitter in real time and can be narrowed to either   Not obvious, located in the “Explore” menu   Searches by keyword, also lists “Trending Topics”

  Google: no “Social”-type search   But you can site search [site:twitter.com “phrase”] will look for the phrase

within Twitter   Differences - not in real time, can’t be narrowed to tweets OR people, just tweets

AND people, and usually just people (even when searching for a #keyword)

 Yahoo: almost as Twitter-friendly as Bing; keyword searches will return recent tweets if applicable

Yahoo http://search.yahoo.com/

Yahoo Search Direct

Yahoo part 2

Yahoo does not explain when the Twitter tab will appear and when it will not (i.e., it appears for “One Direction” searched as a keyword, but not

“Trayvon”…)

Other Tools

 http://hashtags.org/ - list of all active hashtags and their recent activity

 http://beta.twitseek.com/ - searches URLs used in tweets

 http://tweetscan.com/ - searches names used in tweets

 http://www.twitscoop.com/ - searches and tracks both keywords and hashtags

 http://tweetag.com/ - another keyword/hashtag tracker

Sources "Twitter.com Traffic and Demographic Statistics," Quantcast.com (3/2012):

http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com "Twitter Turns Six," Twitter blog (3/21/2012):

http://blog.twitter.com/2012/03/twitter-turns-six.html "How to Search Twitter - The Advanced Guide," Search Engine Journal (11/28/2008):

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-search-twitter-the-advanced-guide/8034/ "Twitter," Wikipedia (3/2012): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter Image sources: http://designrelated.com/news/feature_view/53/the-redesign-of-the-twitter-bird http://www.freesocialicons.com/free-tweeting-twitter-bird-icon/ http://holidayblog.easyjet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/twitter-bird-logo.jpg http://gadgetsin.com/tag/fun-cake