Using Google Search to find interesting Twitter Users

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I recently wrote an article about using Google search results to find out who has made one of your tweets a favourite by a particular search string and things have developed from there.

Alexandre Gamela, writes on a Portuguese blog called Twitter Portugal and on an article today he has posted about using another search query in Google to produce results and could prove to be more effective in finding interesting people on twitter that you can connect with. Alexandres personal blog is in English and worth checking out.

Twitter Location search in Google

Open Google and in the search bar paste this query:

site:twitter.com/* location+**yourlocation**

In the string above replace the red text with the location where you want to locate people, say for example, your local town or area so the string would look like this:

site:twitter.com/* location+London

The results that come back are the listings Google has for twitter people who have added their profile location aas London hence the reference in the string to the word “location” plus “London”.

I have run a few tests to see how this breaks down and it works for street names as well.  Check this out.

site:twitter.com/* location+Wall Street

Using Twitter location search in Google:

Something I came across was also the use of locations that have two or more words as their name, like New York, that produced a different set of results on each search when the search is performed with and without a space between the words “New” and “York” like the examples below:

site:twitter.com/* location+New York

site:twitter.com/* location+NewYork

As you can see the results are quite different and Google does suggest that you try New York as the spelling when the second search is performed.  This now has me thinking about how these results are populated in order of rank as the New York Times has top position on the location search. Interesting maybe… Need to think about this a little more before I draw any conclusions.

Twitter Biography search in Google

Another variation on the search which could prove to be even more interesting is how to search peoples twitter biography profiles with Google. The search string works in the same manner as the one above but we replace the word location with Bio and the term with something related to the bio like so:

site:twitter.com/* bio+**information we wish to find in someones bio**

This means we can insert a keyword or phrase instead of the red text above to search through twitter users bios and hopefully find someone really interesting to connect with so it could be any of the searches below:

site:twitter.com/* bio+doctor

site:twitter.com/* bio+art museum

site:twitter.com/* bio+blogger

Quite honestly the possibilities are endless and one important point this illustrates is how you need to consider your bio in twitter as this search is used in various other formats and applications to produce results. Does your Bio reflect you accurately?  Maybe its time to revise it a little!

Let me know what type of searches you do and how the results work out for you!

**Update.

Variation on using Google search to find interesting twitter users

Alexandre just replied to a comment I left on his site directing me to another way of using the searches above to drill down and find really specific people you would love to meet on twitter by Mike Mirrell. The method he describes seem to have much more specific and targeted results than than above.

I have quoted Mikes post on Using Google to Twitter Tweeple as I reckon its only fair he gets recognition for posting this cool information. Thanks Mike really cool stuff.

Using Google to Find Twitter Tweeple

I came across a neat tip on searching for specific folks to follow on Twitter. Now there are applications such as Nearby Tweets and GeoTweet but this seemed much more effective to me. It basically leverages the Google search engine to search Twitter profiles. This tip leverages the google site search.

Here’s how it works:

1.  Example: Say I want to search for marketers in the NYC area. This is what I would copy into Google.com

site:twitter.com intitle:”on twitter” “bio* * marketing” “location NYC”

This returned 8 pages of targeted results.

2.  Example: If I would like to find recruiters in the Austin area I could use this search

site:twitter.com intitle:”on twitter” “bio* * recruiter” “location austin”

This returned 11 results.

From these examples, you can just play with the words behind bio and location to get different results. For example you could search for “PR” within “dallas”.

Hopefully you found this helpful enough to share with others.

- Back to makin’ bacon

If anyone has any more ideas or experiences with this form of searching let us know in the comments below, or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.  Enjoy!

AlertThingy Review – Social Media desktop software and friendfeed all in one

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I came across AlertThingy while browsing the web looking for a way to centralise all my social media profiles into a single interface.  Of course my first port of call was FriendFeed but I much prefer desktop software where possible.  For Twitter Im currently using Tweetdeck, whihc is great for staying in touch with followers on twitter but really left me wanting for updates on all my other social media profiles.  Sure it has a FaceBook feed in but I still have to login to FaceBook directly to reply and comment on walls and such.

AlertThingy – Your Social Desktop

Launched on April 16th 2008 the standard install of AlertThingy supports quite a few social media networks including:

  • Amazon
  • Basecamp
  • Digg
  • FaceBook
  • Tumblr
  • Flikr
  • Hundle
  • Ping.fm
  • TinyURL
  • Tumblr
  • TwitPic
  • Twitter
  • Twitter Search
  • Yammer

AlertThingy promises to be adding more networks as development continues.  The interface is what we have come to expect and is similar to TweetDeck,  with multi or single columns and information segmented into the various feeds and groups you have imported while also being associated with the logo of that feed, for example the Twitter t against all tweets.

One very cool thing that this tool does it also allow you to also import news feeds and blog feeds to a separate column and comes with a range of different RSS feeds already prepared such as the BBC, WallStreet, TweetMeMe and Techcrunch but you can choose specific feeds to add yourself so its really quite flexible.

Pretty easy to use all in all but I will spend more time with it to see how it holds up against the likes of TweetDeck.

AlertThingy FriendFeed

Interestingly enough, if your a FriendFeed User and would like desktop software for Friendfeed but don’t want to add all your profiles individually, they also have a version of AlertThingy specifically catering to Friendfeed.

Installing it and adding in your Firendfeed account details starts pulling in information from your established FriendFeed Accounts (although I’m not sure at the moment if this includes things like Youtube, or only the list mentioned in the alternative version, I’m still checking it out at the moment).  As Comments come in you can “like” them or “comment” back directly via the interface directly from the desktop.

Its still in the early stages, even though its been about for over a year, and looks a bit ugly with an all black interface and white writing but I’m assuming its in the early stages of development and am hoping it will expand in the near future.

Give them a try by downloading them from:

AlertThingy

AlertThingy – FriendFeed

Let me know your thoughts on how it works, good or bad and if you think its a serious contender as a social media desktop application. For me the Jury is most definitely, still out.

**Update**
Just came across this video by bwana.tv about AlertThingy, might help to describe it better!

What is FriendFeed and should I be using it?

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I have been asked “What is FF?” quite a few times recently so I thought it might be a good idea to cover this and save me repeating myself a million times in the near future. Of course, now, I will just have to repeat it 10,000 times but that’s a big time saver for me anyway :P!  Lets get on with it!

What is FriendFeed and should I be using it?

What is FF*?

FF stands for FriendFeed in social media speak.

*It can also stand for Firefox!

With all your social profiles on a variety of different sites on the web, FriendFeed’s main aim is to centralise all these accounts under one package.  That’s the plain and simple of it.

Creating an account on FriendFeed means you can develop your profile (as usual) and begin aggregating information from a multitude of other social networking and social media sites into your profile.  That sounds really technical doesn’t it? Let me say that again.  Basically it means you have one account and all your other accounts can be added to it, putting them all under one roof.  That was simpler isn’t it!

Using FriendFeed

Friendfeed couldn’t be simpler to use, just create an account, add your profile photo, a short description of who you are and what you do and then begin adding in your other social profiles. The full list of profiles is extensive and covers 58 social networks you can integrate and use as if your where logged in directly.

FriendFeed also has some other really sensible and useful features such as lists (a specific list of friends or people you subscribe to) and Groups, an area where you can meet new people with similar interests but I will cover them in more detail.

For a more comprehensive explanation of what FriendFeed is check out  the help page. I would recommend you try FriendFeed out, purely for the time saving aspect if nothing else and if you do, you can find my FriendFeed at:

http://friendfeed.com/justinparks

If your already on Friendfeed, add a link to your page in the comments. Always nice to meet a new face and say hello.