Review: Summize Twitter Search
Summize, a company I am quite familiar with following my review of their review aggregator product, has substantially changed their company direction since I have last been in touch with them. They are now focusing on a Twitter search tool - so much so that it is their main product and the review aggregator has been moved to their Labs section. So why the abrupt change? Summize CEO Jay Virdy tells me they see an opportunity to do something big in the Twitter space and I believe them.
I’ll skip the details as we all know Twitter is big right now and making waves. I mean I wrote a research paper on it for a computer science class. That usually wouldn’t fly if Twitter was anything short of game-changing. As I noted in that paper, Twitter is used for many different things rather than people listing what they’re doing. This is where Summize comes in handy. It helps you filter through everything to find what you really want.
The first inception of any real sort of Twitter search was the Google Co-op powered Twitter search created by Steve Rubel. The only downside is that it treats Twitter like just another site. It doesn’t delve deeper into the content on Twitter and utilize metadata such as usernames and at replies.
Summize was built around comprehending the Twitter syntax and characteristics, even hacks such as hashtags. So why do I personally use Summize? Brand Management. It’s the best tool in a community manager’s arsenal, or for that matter anyone wishing to keep track of something.
Take Wednesday night for example. I was with the people behind Pownce as they launched support for public files. After it was announced I showed Mike Summize as a way to quickly track what people were saying about Pownce. It proved rather useful. The only piece of feedback Mike had for Summize was that it should automatically update the search results rather than saying more results are available and forcing users to reload the page to view them.
As one would expect with any modern, user-friendly search tool, Summize allows users to subscribe to custom search query feeds. I do this to help track buzz around Skribit by subscribing to a feed not including things I or other Skribit co-founders have posted or received on Twitter, since we would have already seen them in our replies tab on Twitter.
I subscribe to that in Safari, which passively notifies me of new results with the number of results next to the bookmark. It fits seamlessly into my daily workflow. When I spot someone having trouble with Skribit, I’ll drop them a message on Twitter to see if I can help. Contrast this with tracking the blogosphere and it is easy to see why I like Summize.
Twitter-able Summize Verdict: Summize is a powerful tool letting users maintain a grasp on the rapidly-updating Twitter community while retaining remarkable ease of use.
Do you use tools like Summize to track happenings on Twitter?
Further Reading: ReadWriteWeb posted an interesting article today analyzing Twitter trends utilizing Summize.
Seems like a very interesting and useful tool. I agree they should have an option for auto refresh. Maybe they don’t want to overload their server.
This is great paul, now I can find people to fllow
I don’t agree with your comments that ‘twitter is big right now and making waves’, I think that was true when it was first out. Since then they have been plagued by technical issues and downtime that really, IMHO, and many others who have written about it online means they are just another 2.0 raindrop in a big ocean
http://elliottback.com/wp/archives/2007/10/21/twitter-sucks-its-too-unreliable/
http://www.eyeline.mobi/blog/2008/04/25/twitter-cool-but-unreliable/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/20/twitter-downtime-on-the-upswing/
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Y9x&q=twitter+unreliable&btnG=Search&meta=
@David - to each his own. I’ve found Twitter helpful more so in the last year due to the increasing number of users and how much the community has grown. For example, on my recent California trip I was able to organize events solely over Twitter by posting that I was in LA and looking for something to do with other twitterers. I’ve found that rather remarkable.
Thanks for the post, Paul. I just used Summize to check out my web host (Bluehost), found out that it does not have a Twitter account, that the CEO’s blog is now defunct, and that there are several folks complaining about it. Then searched for Media Temple, and got an entirely different picture: they have a Twitter account and seem to be getting far more positive reports than negative.
You’re right that anyone into Brand management (or that is curious about a brand) can benefit from Summize. I’ve added it to my FF toolbar.
@Paul, I totally agree with you that it is useful….. I just don’t think its earth shattering in its impact on the net as mentioned above. Facebook and Myspace imo have had a far larger impact. Nice article btw….. and i have noticed you have been using pownce a lot recently ;)
Paul,
When you say use Summize for brand management, why not use Twitter's built in "Track" feature? It can alert you via IM or sms message to let you know when a phrase (such as "Skribit") is mentioned and then you'll be just as able to follow things said about that topic.
Also, on the note of companies using Twitter for brand management, Comcast does this well. Not only do they pay attention to big time people like Michael Arrington, but they are tracking any mention of their name and respond to anyone having troubles with their service. I posted an update talking on how my comcast service was experiencing difficulties and was alerted by @comcastcares within minutes. It's probably one of the best company experiences I have had thanks to the power of Twitter and their track feature.
My site also uses twitter to track any mention of us by anyone and to respond back to what they're saying. I love the community and capabilities provided by Twitter.
I’ve been using Summize with Hahlo3 on the iPhone. I wish there was a way to omit self from the results.
As a comparison, try our tool:
http://twist.flaptor.com
It allows you to follow trends on Twitter, for example:
http://twist.flaptor.com/freq?gram=hillary%2Cobama
You can also search and subscribe to result feeds just like with Summize.
@mike - I already track “skribit” through Twitter but I have yet to get any results. Summize seems to be quicker and more effective in my limited testing.
Never thought of using Summize for product management. My simple brain tried searching for: cat.
Summize is becoming a must-use tool for anyone interested in getting a handle on what’s happening on the Twittersphere. What I like about it is the clean UI, which strikes me as Google-like.
One question: what’s the business model, something that no one, not even Twitter, have addressed yet.
I find their technology pretty damn awesome. Mostly because I’ve no clue how they can index something I posted just seconds ago.
Seems like a fun company to work for. How big are they?
I must confess to becoming more than a little Twitter obsessed of late. Summize isn’t helping ! ;)
I was very excited about Summize for business reasons (and still am) but in playing with it I discovered that I can search Tweets pretty openly, even if I’m not a Twitter user or connected (Following or Follower) to the Tweeter. Details here:
http://tinyurl.com/5s8wzd
Thanks; any insights or comments welcome. Ellen
Thanks for the writeup, Paul. Sorry for the late reply. I hope you had a chance to try out our new local search feature using the near operator (e.g., here all twitterers in Atlanta: http://summize.com/search?q=near%3Aatlanta).
@Jonathon Solichin
- we’ve had many requests for auto-refresh. we’re experimenting with different options that strikes a right balance with user experience and server load.
@Bruce Keener
- we have been very active on twitter. our official account was twitter.com/summize_com, but we switched over to twitter.com/summize just today. i can be reached at twitter.com/jayvirdy
- i don’t have an active personal blog, but i’m slowly getting there. i’m just too busy running a coastally challenged startup :)
@Preshit
- you can omit yourself by appending -from:preshit to your queries
@Mark Evans
- thanks for the positive feedback.
- there are new conversational search based business models that we’ll be exploring.
@Dimitry
- we’re always looking for new talent. contact me jay [at] summize [dot] com if you’re interested.
@Oli from the-iBlog.com
- i agree we’re not helping. Summize is definitely very addictive. ;-)
@Ellen Petry Leanse
- Saw your excellent post. I will respond there directly, but you are correct that we only index public tweets. direct messages and private tweets are not indexed.
Thank you all for the helpful feedback.
Jay Virdy
CEO
Summize, Inc.
http://twitter.com/jayvirdy
http://summize.com