Topsy, a new search engine that incorporates Twitter into its ranking system, launched today.  Of course, this is exciting news because the Holy Grail of search engine development right now is “real time search.” How better to answer the question “what’s going on in the world right now?” than to look at what people around the world are saying right now?

TechCrunch reviewed Topsy and called it “amazing,” so we thought we’d try it out.  Now, one of the things that makes Topsy unique among search engines (as opposed to apps developed specifically to search Twitter) is that it uses tweets and retweets to index content. Topsy’s algorithm seems to incorporate some of the same ideas about the nature of influence that we heard about from Joe Fernandez earlier today. Twitter users with more influence are more able to influence the ranking of content in Topsy through their tweets and retweets.

The idea of using retweets to rank content from the web is intriguing, but here’s the real question: Does Topsy provide better information about breaking news than you could get from say, Google News?

Well, not exactly…at least not yet.  When I searched for “Topsy” on both search engines, the Techcrunch article I linked to above was the number one result from both engines. I tried to find breaking news on Proposition 8 using both engines and got different results-but there were more relevant and informative results on Google News.

The number one result on Topsy was about a false report about Prop 8 being overturned that swept through Twitter earlier this evening. There was also a link to an article from the Onion, a link about “Proposition 8: The Musical” and links to articles that describe how Apple feels about Prop 8 (they’re against it) and how Tom Hanks feels about Prop 8 (he’s also against it).  Topsy’s first page also showed a link to a petition to overturn the proposition and a link to Gov. Schwarzeneggar’s response to the court ruling.

On the first page of Google News, we learn that Proposition 8 has been overturned, get a link to the governor’s statement, get links to various opinion articles about the situation  and learn that the lawyers who opposed each other in Bush Vs. Gore have joined forces to fight Prop. 8.

The way in which Tospy has incorporated methods of measuring influence on social media and ranking search engine content is innovative. The user interface could use some work, though. It’s not as easy to scan as I’d like. How useful it will be to you totally depends on the situation and what you are looking for.

If it’s breaking news that the mainstream media hasn’t had time to cover yet, you might get better results on Topsy. If you want to see what stories people who use Twitter think are important, Topsy is the way to go. If you want to see what people on Twitter are doing in response to a certain story (like the Prop 8 petition), Topsy will be useful.

However, at least for the moment,  if you are just trying to find as much relevant information as possible on a specific topic, Google is probably still the way to go. Unless, of course, the topic is Twitter….

What do you think about Topsy? Is it the search engine of the future, another dead end, or something in between? How often do you think you’ll use it? Discuss.

Our Rating of Topsy

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