As computer technology expands and grows, there seems to be a stream of new terminology to go with each forward stretch.  First ‘online’ was innovation, and then ‘cloud computing’ became the king of internet buzz words. But the one word I have been seeing most recently is ‘real time search.’  My first thought as I began to see this phrase used more often was how can a search be anything but a search?  A search is a search is a search.  But as I looked into the meaning of the term, I noticed that there actually is a difference, and it is quite a handy (and fun) tool to have around.

What is real time search and where did it come from?

Real time search is looking for material that is published in real time.  Ideally, this means there is no time delay between when the material is composed and when it is published, and ultimately when you discover it via a search.  There is some debate between what is considered real time-if taking a few minutes to compose something and hit the publish button counts, or if it must be pushed to the internet in a matter of seconds.  I personally believe in the 5 minute rule when it comes to real time.  After 5 minutes, any information or material ceases to be current.

The advent of real time searching is generally attributed to that ever so popular website called Twitter.  After all, what could be faster than typing a 140 character message in a box?  Not much, which is why Twitter practically invented real time material and real time search with their own Twitter Search engine.  This engine allows you to type in your search topic and be presented with the most recent tweets concerning that topic.  But just because Twitter invented real time search doesn’t mean tweets are the only real time material.  If you’re looking for a bigger selection of real time results, you’ll have to use a different search.

Real time search utilities

Beyond Twitter material such as tweets and twitpics, there is a wealth of additional real time content such as recently published blogs, Facebook status’, Digg articles, news articles, FriendFeeds, videos, and much more.  As a result, many new real time search services have been created to aggregate these content sources.  Here are a couple of them:

• Collecta – Its best feature is the preview pane to the right that displays any result you click on with a ‘share result’ option for each. It also offers an API for application development.
• CrowdEye – Pulls only from Twitter, but separates tweeted links from actual tweets which is very useful. It also allows you to easily retweet any result, and displays the tweet volume of the topic you searched.
• OneRiot – Deals with mostly article links, shoving tweets kind of to the side. But it does offer the option to sort by ‘Pulse’ or ‘Realtime.’ It also offers an API for application development.
• Scoopler – Pulls up your live search results and a popular tab that highlights content from the topic you searched.

All of these sites not only pull up real time search results, but update them as you are looking so you don’t have to refresh the page to get more recent ones.  The one that does this the best in my opinion is Collecta.

Big Search engines and real time

Recently the search giants Google and Bing have acknowledged the significance of real time search with their own strategic offerings.  Real time searching is powerful and relevant.  After all, how could something that happens in real time not be relevant? And what company doesn’t want to know the hottest topics for this week, this day, or even this minute?

Bing made the first move coming out with BingTweets.  While it is a step in the right direction, they have yet to incorporate other real time material, and also have yet to combine this new real time search with the regular one in a seamless manor.  Google has also caught on, introducing Hot Trends to its giant search empire.  Apparently, if you search a topic that is in its Hot Trends, it will pop up with a graph at the bottom of your results showing the popularity and other stats (I have not been able to get this feature to show up yet).

It seems that real time search has become less a thing of the future and more a thing of right now! Ok that was cheesy, but it’s true.  This is a technology that will stick with us just as cloud computing and the concept of being online has.  So until big search companies catch up with this real time trend, I suggest using some of the great sites listed above for your real time searching needs.

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Tags: bing, BingTweets, cloud computing, Collecta, CrowdEye, Digg, Facebook, FriendFeed, Google, Hot Trends, OneRiot, online, real time search, Scoopler, Twitter

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 11:03 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.