I read in TechCrunch last week that Twitter is going to be enabling search across all tweets in the near future. From this, businesses will able to enable intent marketing (a term that came up after a conversation with the CEO and founder of DOUBLE ENCORE, Dan Burcaw: interview coming soon!). With intent marketing a marketer can know what a user is looking for if/when they tweet/post about it. Twitter is already being used for customer service and this is quite different. (A friend of mine recently complained/tweeted about not being able to unsubscribe from a newsletter and the next day a customer service rep contacted them and got them off the list.) This type of marketing is already happening on a smaller scale. (Another friend commented on a wine they had tried and was soon contacted by the wine maker to invite them to try other types of their wines.)
Google will buy twitter, not for their search of course but for their window into users intent. (It was rumored that Facebook tried to buy Twitter back in January and I think that Google will make them an offer they can’t refuse.) Advertising can go from contextual to intent based. Companies like Brightkite are going to enable situational marketing and in the end conduit marketing. These are all real time marketing methods and intent marketing is “near future” and therefore arguably more valuable. Just short of mind reading. So for now this search is available to you and I.
. . . and, this is a deal Google won’t miss.
