[Sassy_Lina]

All I am saying is that it shouldnt be one of the options for universal search.....There SHOULD have been something else. I am not bashing anyones personal preference...all I am saying is I dont think it should be on the US page and if IT IS personal preference PALM should let us edit what we want on that page.

The fact that it is included means that your thoughts are of the minority. Just deal with it! Don't use it in universal search. Does the word "twitter" offend you? You can control your own destiny, LOL, how bout you just don't tell your brain to move your finger to tap twitter. Now that is one of the best ideas I've ever came up with if I do say so myself. *pats herself on the back profusely*

[dwhitman]

I certainly don't feel outraged that they added Twitter, but I did do a sort of "Huh? Hope you can pick and choose what shows up here in the future" when I saw it.

Right now, there's still open space on the universal search card so an option I won't use isn't a big deal. But I presume and hope more and more options will be available and that you can customize which ones to display. I want my top choices visible on top without scrolling, and really, I don't find Twitter search all that useful. If space came to a premium I'd dump it in favor of tfd.com, thesaurus.com, whitepages.com, etc.

[Goyena]

The fact that there's a Google search in the Universal Search is great already; everything else is extra cake. If I had a touchscreen computer, there'd be a hole worn in the area where the search field (set to Google) of browser is. To "universal search" on my laptop, I just add "youtube" or "twitter" (semicolon) I rarely go to the site first.

e.g. "rottentomatoes transformers movie" and click! is quick than going to their site, waiting for the ads to load, searching in the different categories, etc.

[Aero]

Twitter can be used for more than personal blogging, CNN and just about everything else in the world is on there too.
It's harmless, why so serious?

It isn't really harmless. The way to think about it is if you had a car radio that received all amateur broadcasts as well as am/fm. You would have your 30 stations but to get to them you have to wade through thousands of others.

In information and communications theory this is called "noise" and twitter will produce more and more noise compared to more useful content for many users. Wading through unedited noise is a cost.

I almost never use a semi-colon. Why does the Palm have it on their keyboard? LAME!!!

because Pre is a Palm, a messaging oriented smartphone, and you use semi colons in multiple mail address "to" fields. It maybe vestigial like your appendix, but there is some inertia against removing things that were there for so very long for a specific reason.

[redbirdie]

Has anyone else seen video demos where twitter was not listed in the universal search along with Google and Wikipedia? Although it seems cleverly "Now" for them to leverage twitter as a marketing tool, do you really think they've got it baked into the DNA of the Pre? Remember on one of the Sprint commercials that referenced twitter, it was almost making light of twitter. ("N% of you have know idea what that is")

Where's the ski mask guy when you need him; I want to hear him yell "TWIIIIITTTTEERRRR!"

[cardfan]

Rather see Sprint Nav as one of the search options.

[Kyusaku]

Because there will probably be over 400 Twitter apps for the Pre according to chuq. :P

Twitter / chuq von rospach: you can stop submitting ap ...

[JONNNathannn]

Pre fans are the worst. "One of the options is Twitter, LAME, WTF, DEALBREAKER?"

[asforme]

This isn't about twitter. Google, Wikipedia and Maps are all universal things that nearly every person uses. If the choices are going to be static then those are fine. But if niche services are going to be added than they need to be customizable. Why should twitter be in there but not facebook? What about Digg or Reddit? Why not LinkedIn? These things are only of interest to people who use those services and Palm should not be defining what services are good enough to be there and which arent.

Theres already a great system for this customization, its called Open Search. It's how you add search options to modern browsers. Instead of Palm trying to decide whether or not they should add this or that, they should just make it customizable with any Open Search provider and be done with it.

[bubbatex]

Twitter is unique because it is a "real time" search engine - something no other search engine can do. It is very interesting to see what is "bubbling up" in the world and it also can be useful to gather info just as you would in Google. Granted, as it has been mentioned above, there is a lot of garbage, but it can be a very useful tool once you get used to it. I run twitter via twirl all day just like Outlook and IE - depending on who you follow, it can be very informative (I don't even use RSS feeds any longer).

Give search a try: Twitter Search

BTW - I would have also considered YouTube on the search page - just as mush as the OP dislikes Twitter, I don't care that much for YouTube (as a site I would frequent) but I would certainly understand why it is on the Pre's universal search page.

[Bujin#IM]

I almost never use a semi-colon. Why does the Palm have it on their keyboard? LAME!!!

because Pre is a Palm, a messaging oriented smartphone, and you use semi colons in multiple mail address "to" fields. It maybe vestigial like your appendix, but there is some inertia against removing things that were there for so very long for a specific reason.

I was actually kidding about the fact that, because there are functions that an individual person may never use, that it's a fault of the device. I think the fact that I received serious responses may say something about the general reactions of tech fanboys....or our society....or it may say nothing.

[galavanter]

AlwayzRight thanks for starting this thread. It has been a nice read thus far. I'm not a fan of Twitter either. It always makes me think first of "I'm in a taxi cab now" Lynn Fox, then Howard Stern, then farts and (thanks to Lynn) the Pre.

I agree that being able to hide/show/add/delete searches should be added. However I didn't realize that Twitter could be useful in searching for realtime information. This could be useful. The thread has me more excited about universal search and its possible evolution.

You've been lucky in that you have had a lot of thoughtful replies (thanks to all), and only a few fanboy type adolescent comments. Some guys are beginning to stand out here for that. Forgive them, they don't realize how they embarrass themselves. It's just who they are. Like everyone here (on a phone forum) isn't interested in a phone that meets their wants, needs and expectations.

[jhoff80]

Another reason why, aside from Twitter being more useful than I thought it would be (which of course depends on who you follow) is this...

Real time Twitter User and Client Stats - Tweetrush Powered by Rush Hour Analytics

Just yesterday there were an estimated 1.7 million people who actively posted a message on Twitter. Why WOULDN'T they do what they can to try and add even a portion of that market to their target users?

Besides the fact that I'd bet a large number of people on Twitter are smartphone users, I've seen tons of messages posted from iPhone or Blackberry clients. If they can position their phone as better for Twitter, that might convince some people to change.

[Str8addicted]

we have way to much free time..... i want info so i come to this forum and i just keep see threads about people b*tching about every lil thing.....

i know i can stay away but i cant....lol

[NM08SRT8]

YouTube should show up on the universal search. Not freakin Twitter.

Dude just relax.. Take some pills.

[galavanter]

^

^^

Like flies to honey.

jhoff80 that's a lot of tweets. Your posts are guaranteed to be informative and objective. I look for them. Thanks.

[dwhitman]

Well, as an example, during the D7 conference you were able to get real-time news updates by searching #d7.

You know, I tried for the first serious time during the D7 thing. I had 4 tabs going: our forum here, the D7 blog, engadget and a #d7 twitter search. I closed the twitter tab about half-way through the talk - nothing there worth reading, mostly just noise, and it was lagging the other three windows when any information actually did appear.

Maybe I need to be deeper into the ins-and-outs of twitter and what search terms would have given the best results. But I was underwhelmed. YMMV.

[rhewitt]

I almost never use a semi-colon. Why does the Palm have it on their keyboard? LAME!!!

There's a reason the Windows Mobile devices from Palm have the semicolon. This phone synchronizes with 8 Exchange servers at once. If you have ever used Outlook, you may have noticed it allows your contact names to have commas and for email addresses to be separated by semicolons. This phone will sync with up to 8 Exchange servers storing said contacts, so the semicolon is probably more important than on classic PalmOS.

[wynand32]

Yes, this inclusion of Twitter in Universal Search is just ANOTHER reason why anyone in the San Fernando Valley region outside of LA should NOT consider getting a Pre. What a pain, to have to look at that Twitter button everytime you start Universal Search--I mean, it's so, just, THERE, you know?

So, yes, San Fernando Valley folks, just stay away from the Pre. It's a terrible, terrible device. Not at all worth your time and money.

[rhewitt]

On Twitter I follow Palm and Pre Central. It's kind of nice getting SMS updates from both of them.