New York — Google has finally began tweeting on Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, joining a growing list of companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft, which have both created official corporate accounts.
The Internet’s search giant’s first tweet was a string of binary code. The message, which read “I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010", translates as “feeling lucky”.
Google is channelizing Twitter to become more transparent after a major Gmail outage and is currently following 58 people but has garnered more than 25,000 followers since it announced its entry this week.
“Industry experts are guessing that Google may want to buy Twitter to head off competition.”
Although Google’s second post reflected the company’s real motive for launching on Twitter. Google tweeted this message 20 minutes later: “Check out the new Google Apps Status Dashboard.” After a data-center breakdown earlier this week that put Gmail out of service for a couple of hours, Google has moved to be more transparent. The dashboard is one move, and Twitter is the other.
The account, written by an anonymous staff member identified only as “a Googler”, promises to bring official news and updates from Google. The search company already has an official blog that it uses to keep people apprised of Google’s latest projects.
Twitter has exponentially grown in popularity since the beginning of the year, continuing its massive expansion as high-profile members like Stephen Fry continue to gather new followers.
This week, it also broke news on the recent Turkish Airline crash in Holland, and provided more accurate information than early reports.
The inclusion of Google, one of the world’s biggest technology companies, to the ranks of Twitter users is a major boost for the micro-blogging service. The latest figures for industry analysts Hitwise now show that Twitter is the 91st most-visited website by UK web users, ahead of Internet stalwarts such as Expedia.co.uk, Gumtree, easyJet and Moneysupermarket.com.
Undoubtedly, Google may be late to join the Twitter party, and its sudden entrance has many speculating about whether it plans to purchase the micro-blogging service that allows 140 characters to tell people what you are doing.
Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, is certain that Google is at least evaluating the value of Twitter as an asset and how the company might leverage it. Twitter, he said, has become an interesting Internet phenomenon that has risen to a certain level of cultural awareness.
“It makes a lot of sense for Google to look at it and think about buying it,” Sterling said. “But what is it worth and is buying it as a defensive measure sufficient, or does it need to generate revenue commiserate with the purchase price?”
The micro-blogging website also recently received venture capital funding as it tries to become a moneymaking operation.
Hitwise said that traffic to Twitter had trebled in 2009, and had increased 27-fold in the last 12 months. However, the company said that the numbers are likely even higher, as many people use third-party applications on their mobile phones and computers, such as TweetDeck and Twitterific, to access Twitter and manage their accounts, rather than visiting Twitter.com directly.