Should Google Watch its Back?

As we work and study social media throughout this class, I am beginning to feel that the Internet world is run by a group of powerhouse search engines and social media platforms. Up until recently, those entities only competed against their own kind: Microsoft and Yahoo compete against Google, and Twitter and LinkedIn war to knock Facebook of its newly built pedestal. But now, now things are getting ugly because the newest threat to Google isn't Yahoo or even Bing; it's Twitter.

Lew Moorman makes the following point:

There are some things Twitter is just flat out better at for getting information than Google. Here are just a few: researching companies, products and services for real customer feedback, breaking news and live events/conference updates. It is not a total threat but Twitter is so superior in these areas that people will indeed make the effort to search somewhere new to get the information. I do.

He goes on to give an example that blogs are tweeted and retweeted, so searching for a topic in Tweet Search provides more up tho the date and accurate than the one hit provided in the Google search. I find this interesting because once again, user-generated content is beginning to topple the ivory towers of the more structured entities, such as those that would come up on a Google search. If someone Google's a news story, that person will likely get the version from CNN and MSNBC. Those sites have stories that are reported on and updated by a small staff of reporters, maybe only one. A Twitter search, however, will yield tweets from many people, some of whom may have more timely, and others may be first-hand witnesses.

This data is gold… The more info [Twitter] get[s], the more value they create. How will they use it? Well, we will see. But, if I was Google, I would be paying attention.

Check out this video from Newsy.com on wether Twitter is a threat to Google.