My new no-Google experiment: round two. Bring on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare

Last year I ditched Google for a week as an experiment in using Twitter whenever I felt the compulsion 'to Google'.

It was (based on my humble preconceptions) a success - I found that I needed Google less than I thought, and that asking Twitter or doing a search on there instead brought more useful information. Not quite as quick, but far more useful. It got me and some people thinking. 

Since that experiment Facebook has launched stream search - you can do searches in peoples status updates and wall posts that aren't marked private (try it here). Also, Foursquare has been gaining critical mass. You can see tips on locations and I have more friends there now than Facebook, so it's worth testing out. 

So for the next seven days, every time I have an urge to use Google, I will turn to one of my trusty socialnets instead. I'll update this blog post below with random updates. 

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Update #1. My car broke down and at very short notice I needed to find a garage. Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook were useless. Round one to Google. 

Update #2. Even more than my last experiment, I found I rely almost entirely on Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook any way! I rarely use Google it seems. 

Update #3. I successfully found things like: Who's with me at a party (Foursquare swarming), what are people saying about client stories (Facebook's new open search streams), finding out when trains become un-cancelled (Twitter and Foursquare in Euston when all trains were cancelled), and I crowdsourced some things (Twitter told me to use Photobox for my pic prints but I know to expect the UI to be poor. Thanks Twitter). 

Comments

[Lurkmoophy]

funny enough google have something similar that answers question using your social network

http://vark.com/

It's in labs at the moment and I haven't given it a go yet, but there will come a day when google takes over the world methinks.

[Ben Cotton]

A very interesting idea, Drew. Whilst, Google is great for normal search, Twitter is fantastic for giving you the latest insight into what people are thinking and doing. As your initial post suggests, it’s all about real time search over the archived web.

I look forward to reading the random updates!