Ideas for a Smarter, Faster World

Twitter 2, Google 0

I’m curious, Austin… Where can I get faster and better quality local food recommendations: From google or through twitter? Or by some new mind reading technology yet to be revealed at a SXSW Keynote?

This morning I spent several minutes googling ‘local food in austin’, ‘eating local in austin’ and a few others so I could start making a good list. I got a few articles, some decent directory websites and several sites that pointed me to other directory websites which in the end felt like a wild goose chase. I gave up quickly because I wasn’t finding what I was looking for. I also wasn’t in the mood to sift through Yelp reviews or anything like that, I just wanted someone to tell me what wanted to know. And right now with very little effort.

While I was sitting here thinking of other clever ways to reword ‘where to eat local food in austin’ the little annoying black twitter box caught my eye and I thought: aha! That’s what I rely on for good Pittsburgh info: The Tweet Deck. While I don’t care so much what twitter-ers are doing every 5 minutes (sorry) I have found some of the best Pittsburgh restaurant reco’s, events, and resources through twitter and actually find the app less of a fad and more of a legitimate way to connect people to the information they want, faster. I can ask people (who’s opinion I might trust based on the links they provide through twitter) to give me recommendations instantaneously. If I tag the right words I might snag some random person who can just answer my question. Or I might stumble upon someone with a great blog whose google entry would be on page 27 had I done a google search for ‘local austin food’.

For me, as a user, blogger and digital art director, this question is bigger than ‘where it the best locally sourced vegetarian burrito’ but more about understanding how to get people legitimate, quality information in a non-time wasting fashion. And trust me, I HATE wasting time so that one counts a lot. And just as a blogger (and I suppose as user as well) its incredibly frustrating to see the layers of dead blogs, mis-informed directories, and just crummy content float to the top on a typical google search, especially if you think you might have something better to offer but can’t reach the searchers.

So now I’m just curious. Which is it? Can google read my mind or will Twitter present me with a better information path to the best locally sourced vegetarian burrito. Inquiring minds, man. Inquiring minds want to know.

Here’s my tally so far. I’m keeping one during my stay.

Twitter 2, Google 0

DM me at @meganmally  if you have any fantastic suggestions and you found this through twitter.

Email me: mmally@brunnerworks.com if you found this through a site search.

Tags: austin, Google, SXSW, twitter

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 9:14 am and is filed under South by Southwest 2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.