I have to admit, despite just reading Erin's blog post yesterday on Google Keeping it real (time) I was still a bit taken back when i first seen this! Two tweets at the top of my search results for "quark base" oh my!
A few problems with tweets in search results:
- It's not clear at a glance these 'funny formatted' search results are from twitter, even to those familiar with it.
- There's no help for those clueless to Twitter, these results will seem like the most relevant recalled results from Google
- The 'pause' option is intriguing. Tweets in the future for popular results will have an insane live feed requiring the user to take action and press pause to stop them.
- It's not clear if the link will take you to Twitter, or bypass the service all together and go directly to the website (it does indeed go directly to the website - however clicking twitter.com results in no action, clicking 23hrs ago takes you to the tweet on twitter.
- And finally why are only two displayed? theres no indication of anymore results from twitter or how to view them.
Realistically:
- New features should always be introduced with supporting help and information in line.
- The live feed should learn from current Facebook and Twitter conventions and let the user take the action to see the updated results (not the other way round) so they choose for the content to change and are not disorientated or distracted by ever changing content.
- There should be clear actions e.g. "View tweet" (with help of course) to direct people to twitter as well as the website.
- What Google really need is the traditional search results we're all used to and a 'Live results' tab which can display relevant information similar to Twitter and Facebook in real time to your search query, this will also give a lot more room for help and guidance and won't distract from traditional well established searching methods we've all grown accustom to.
