I have not noticed this before, so thought this was definitely worth highlighting. And if we have had any doubts, they can now be put to rest. Yes, Google indexes Twitter.
Last week I gave a presentation on the practical aspects of using Social Media in various sectors, starting with Communities. The choice was pretty simple. In 2005-2006 I freelanced between BBC Radio Manchester and QT Radio (under CSV Media’s umbrella), doing lots of radio programming, interviewing, and presenting. QT Radio and Radio Manchester’s Action Desk (later Interaction) both focused on communities: how to engage them, how to let them contribute positively, etc. In April 2006 I also took part in a mediabridge event that connected a gallery at Manchester’s Cornerhouse with a studio in Tijuana in Mexica. The topic was again how to empower communities through the use of the Media.
I’ve been using various social sites and tools since as early as 2000; my life has been predominantly web-based since 2005 (although I can spend days offline, too). But you can surely imagine the surprise I’ve taken away from an event at The Circle Club in Manchester where three speakers were debating Social Media. It was a perfect deja-vu moment: three years on, communities seemed to be in the same kind of rut. How to gain the voice? How to be heard? What to do to make this happen? Just as they used traditional media (radio and TV) in 2005-2006 to gain presence, so now they were trying to use Social Media to the same end.
Whilst this is a never-ending process of a re-discovery of the wheel, I created this first presentation as a response to communities’ questions, and also as a way to trial the reaction to the possibility of measuring the ROI for communities, individuals, and non-profits. We tend to put a lot of effort and passion in our work, so it is understandable that we are then disappointed with measely results. The thought I was trying to put across is: if there is a reason for publishing something on the web, then we’re on the Advertising territory. People don’t always come to read/see/listen to whatever you uploaded, so you may have to go where people are and let them know. The way to give yourself some spin here is by putting the most basic estimate on your time and effort. And, of course, strategic thinking paired with some humanly possible flexibility is instrumental for success.
I've just written a response to SEW's article about Yandex as the Russian SE. The comment that will go on the article will be a much shorter version of what you are about to read here, thanks to the corrections I had to make. I'm coming across as pedantic in this comment/post. I'm not pedantic, except when it's about things I am passionate about 
. Search and language are among such things.
1. Rambler was actually the first Russian SE. Traffic details from Alexa:
The reason why Yandex has won is indeed because they made it their mission to become the Russian Google. They put a lot of effort into this, and the goal has been achieved. Indexing is not ideal: I still find more results for my query in Google than if I search Yandex. But they are not dissimilar to Google in introducing and integrating various services, and this is one area where Rambler has fallen behind. Having said this, Rambler's Begun (PPC platform) was atrocious in 2007, although they may have improved it.
2. "Russian is a member of the Slavic family of languages, which includes a wide range of languages in Eastern Europe from Polish and Czech to Serbian and Croatian. Most of these languages don't use the Cyrillic alphabet"
This does not make sense. Western Slavic languages (Polish e.g.) use Latin alphabet with variations. South and Eastern Slavic languages (Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukranian e.g.) use a variation of Cyrillic alphabet, similar to Russian.
3. "There is no verb "to be" in the Russian present tense".
There is ALWAYS a verb "to be" in present, past, and future tense in the language. "To be" describes the state of being; it would be bizarre if the language did not describe this. What happens in the Russian language is the verb "to be" in the present tense is often a part of a verbal construction, i.e. verb+adjective. "I am happy" in Russian would indeed omit "am", but it doesn't mean it isn't there in the first place. Also, if one looks at the history of language (which we're not going to do), one will see that in the 17-19 cc. it was not uncommon to use "to be" in the present tense.
Speaking of omitting verbs: a very famous "et in Arcadia ego" means "I was also born in Arcadia". But in the Latin phrase it is omitted.
Another example, say, from Latin and Italian: "obi et amo" (hate and love), "penso" (think) – the verbal form implies the presence of "I" as a pronoun, but the pronoun is omitted. It doesn't mean, however, that either Italian or Latin haven't got "I" pronoun.
Notebooks – Los Cuadernos de Julia
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