Twitter just upped their search game in a major way. The social network now lets users search through every tweet ever tweeted. That's a back catalog of around 500 billion tweets for those wondering.
“Our search engine excelled at surfacing breaking news and events in real time, and our search index infrastructure reflected this strong emphasis on recency,” wrote Yi Zhuang, a Twitter search infrastructure engineer. "But, our long-standing goal has been to let people search through every tweet ever published.”
This represents a major change in ethos for Twitter. While it will still be focused on immediacy, it will also now be more of an archive. By using specific variables like hashtags, dates, and specific handles, users will be able to search tweets dating as far back as 2006.
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If you ever wondered what the Twittersphere looked like when Obama was elected in 2008, or when Michael Jackson passed away in 2009, now you can find out. Or, if you ever wondered what it looked like when you got your new Margiela jacket in 2010, well, you can find that out, too.
To read more about Twitter's powerful new search engine click here. (Wired)