Google’s personalized search announcement has blanketed tech news feed all day, and the first social network has just responded. Twitter is clearly resistant to the change and of the firm belief that personalized search (at least as it stands) will cloud search results:
For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.
Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.
We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.
I wonder how (or if) Facebook will respond, but it seems to me like the boxing gloves are out. If Google wins this one Google+ adoption will increase and Google will gain access to data from other major social networks. (Facebook already partners with Bing for personalized results.) If Google loses this personalized search feature will be just that, another feature.