Icerocket skates in where Google fears to tread
If, like me, you’re wondering why you can’t do a ‘Twitter Search’ from the big two search engines then John Battelle has a few theories. To you and I it might make perfect sense for Yahoo! and Google to include a Twitter search but, it seems, they are both willing to sacrifice functionality because they are reluctant to endorse a potential competitor. ‘Fascinating’ if you’re an industry observer; rubbish if you want a search engine to do the obvious.
That’s where Icerocket steps in. As Phil Bradley noted this week, the very nice Icerocket search engine has recently added a Twitter search option. But perhaps even more interestingly it has added a ‘Big Buzz’ option that pulls in very recent results from blogs, Twitter, Video, News and Images. It even gives you an ‘auto refresh’ option to update those results every minute or so as you are working on a story.
As Phil Bradley notes: ‘the whole area of news and social media is one that is seemingly passing Google straight on by.’ More on Icerocket soon.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
[...] her. Den enkleste måten å søke på Twitter er å bruke http://search.twitter.com/, eller prøv Icerockets “Bigg Buzz” funksjon for et søk som inkluderer Twitter, blogger, video [...]
January 31st, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Hmm, over here in Holland Google blocks Icerocket with the ‘ This site could harm your computer’ – message, see http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://www.icerocket.com/
No problem to get beyond the screen. But still..
see also
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en-us&q=icerocket&btnG=Search
January 31st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Hi Henk,
I’ve no idea why Google responds in this way in Holland and, unfortunately, your second link doesn’t function. I’m not aware of, and can’t find any references to, any problems encountered using Icerocket so I can’t fathom why Google would act unilaterally in this way!?
All I can pick up is that recently Icerocket has attracted a lot of praise over its innovative approach. The ‘Big Buzz’ search option, that allows you to track new web content, is particularly good. If you come across any other negative references to Icerocket then please let us know.
Thanks,
Colin
January 31st, 2009 at 4:52 pm
It was the big big Google disaster I witnessed.. web will be full of it soon. Google tagged ALL websites in the world as harmful. Managed to make some screenshots, see http://www.voelspriet2.nl/forum/index.php/topic,9078.msg48851.html#msg48851
January 31st, 2009 at 6:42 pm
[...] to Henk Van Ess who alerted me to this problem through his comments on my post on [...]
January 31st, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Thanks for the heads up on that Henk. Incredible.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
[...] It seems that lately (well not only lately) everybody keeps talking about how Twitter will soon become the new Google or Facebook will soon become the new Google but it has been a while since anybody has mentioned Icerocket becoming the new Google. [...]
March 24th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Hmmm. Not sure this piece or Phil Bradley’s actually claimed Icerocket may become the new Google. On the other hand, it is interesting that Google appears to be slow to pick up on research tools that are focused on social media.
June 21st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
[...] I looked at Icerocket in January. Not only has it set its blog search as its default option, it has also added a twitter search and [...]