Will Twitter replace Google?

I started to write this post as a ‘live post’ from the ABA Techshow in Chicago last week, sitting in the first panel of the day discussing Twitter as a tool for lawyers. But I soon discovered that “live Tweeting” a presentation was far easier than “live blogging” was – at least for me.

One panelist suggested that Twitter, and specifically Twitter’s search tool, may replace Google for live searching. Twitter provides real-time information, commentary and discussion all of the time, on almost any subject. The sessions at Techshow were full of lawyers banging away on laptop keyboards, iPhones and Blackberries, and a chorus of tweets arose agreeing that Twitter’s search feature outstrips any other search tool, including Google, especially for real-time news.

Will Twitter replace Google? I doubt it. But Techshow did provide me with a unique opportunity to be part of conversations relating to Techshow as they were taking place, and to obtain feedback from others attending both the sessions I attended and the ones I missed – while they were still happening. That’s something that would be difficult for Google, at least in its current form, to compete with.

Because Twitter is by nature interactive, rather than static, rather than merely conducting a traditional search, a Twitter user can engage any number of other Twitter users in conversation to obtain the results they seek almost instantaneously. As Dan Thornton put it on his post comparing Google and Twitter on TheWayoftheWeb, “Google provides signposts for where you want to go. Twitter provides you with a guided tour by your friends.” I would add that Twitter might even provide a guided tour by experts that you might never have connected with otherwise.

For those who want to be the first to learn about or convey up to the minute news, Twitter is a valuable tool, in part because of its 140 character limitation. Twitter forces its users to distill their thoughts into small, easily digestible packages that often contain links to larger stories. By doing a search or following specific industry experts, Twitter users can get up to the minute information about what is happening and who is talking about it. I can certainly imagine lawyers using Twitter as a way to find and broadcast up to the minute legal news to their network and obtain on the spot feedback from experts and others about how that news will affect their clients and other professional connections.

Want to know more about what other lawyers and legal-types think about Twitter? Read David Bilinsky’s post, “Something to Twitter About,” describing how Twitter affected his Techshow experience.