How Instagram and Twitter buried the hatchet: The Future of Search

How Instagram and Twitter buried the hatchet: The Future of Search

In the early days of social media, Instagram and Twitter had a complicated relationship. When Instagram launched in 2010, it quickly became the go-to platform for sharing photos on Twitter. Twitter, lacking its own photo hosting capabilities, relied on Instagram to fill this gap. Celebrities like Justin Bieber and Snoop Dogg joined in on the trend, sharing Instagram-filtered photos with their followers. It was a mutually beneficial relationship - Instagram provided the photo sharing capabilities that Twitter lacked, and Twitter benefited from the easy integration.

This interesting dynamic between the two platforms raises the question of why people were using Instagram to share photos on Twitter. There were two main groups: Instagram-main users who wanted to gain attention and expand their Instagram following, and Twitter-main users who simply wanted to share beautiful photos to expand their Twitter network. This highlights the concept of product channel fit - Instagram was able to cover what Twitter couldn't do, making it a valuable tool for both groups of users.

Interestingly, Instagram didn't have any philosophical objection to showing photos in the Twitter timeline. This highlights the understanding that people don't solely rely on one product or platform. They navigate between different platforms, and making these transitions convenient and colorful is important. This is evident in Twitter's integration with Snapchat, showing that they are open to collaboration and recognizing the value in providing a seamless experience for users.

Moving on to the future of search, it's important to understand the underlying desire that drives us to search - curiosity. Curiosity is a natural desire to know or learn something, and it is inherently ingrained in us. We are also driven by loss aversion, not wanting to waste the time we have spent searching. This is where the concept of curation comes into play.

Curation involves curating what you have searched for in the past, and searching from this curated bucket in the future. The process involves three steps: (1) conducting a generic search from the internet, (2) curating the important parts, and (3) searching from the curated bucket. The quality and scope of the curated bucket are crucial factors in making this process effective.

Maintaining the quality of the curated bucket can be achieved through social accountability. By making the curated information public, there is a sense of responsibility and accountability associated with it. This ensures that the curated content is reliable and trustworthy.

It's interesting to note that the way people organize information is often different from the way they actually search for it. This insight suggests that there is room for improvement in the search process. One possible solution is to incorporate public highlights, which combines the benefits of social accountability and specific important parts. This would enhance the quality of the curated bucket and provide users with a more efficient search experience.

Additionally, narrowing down the scope of search can also be beneficial. By separating the search into verticals or specific categories, the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved. This means that users will receive more relevant and targeted results, saving them time and effort.

The word "curate" and "curious" both stem from the same Latin word, "cura," which means care. This connection highlights the importance of caring for the information we search for and how we curate it. In the case of "In-cura-net," an interesting concept emerges. By utilizing interest graphs and social graphs, users can search for information within their curated bucket. This vertical approach to search, utilizing high-quality curated buckets and leveraging interest and social graphs, may be the future of search.

In conclusion, the relationship between Instagram and Twitter exemplifies the concept of product channel fit. By covering what the other platform lacked, they were able to create a mutually beneficial integration. Looking ahead, the future of search lies in curation and verticalization. By curating important information and searching from a curated bucket, users can save time and effort. Incorporating social accountability and narrowing down the search scope can enhance the quality of the curated content. With the utilization of interest and social graphs, the future of search may lie in vertical search through high-quality curated buckets - the In-cura-net.