People, Videos, News: Twitter Adds New Search Filters

Earlier today, Twitter announced that it was bringing a number of new search filters to the site. These include: people, photos, videos, news. There are also “people you follow” and “near you” filters that further refine results.

If one were to search for “Super Bowl,” results could then be filtered by those tweets that incorporated video — so you could see all the ads that had already been posted and tweeted. The utility of the new filters is fairly self evident.

The location filter is very interesting and holds considerable promise for users and for Twitter advertising. For example, I might do a search for “lunch deals” near me as a way to find relevant promotions. Then if this behavior became widespread, it would be a meaningful channel for local restaurants and QSR to promote themselves.

Twitter may need to train users on the use of these filters before marketers can realize their full value. It’s not entirely clear how many people search on Twitter today. However, based on historical information, the volumes are probably significant. 

In 2010, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that the site had 800 million queries a day or 24 billion queries per month. To my knowledge, those numbers have not been publicly updated.