photo credit: elecnix

I recently read Matt Alder’s great post “The Job Cloud – Why Twitter is the future of Job Boards“, and had a few thoughts.  While it was very interesting to read that he was getting a lot of quality resumes by posting jobs on Twitter, should we take this as an early sign that Twitter jobs is the future?

Twitter is great for some things, but for searching for jobs?  I’m skeptical.  In fact, I think this is a really backward idea.

The proposed advantage, of course, is that companies can easily post their jobs online for free without paying job boards.  Great idea, I’ve long said paying expensive fees for postings jobs is archaic, but why Twitter?  Companies have had the opportunity to do this for years using simple RSS.   We also have “free” job search engines that can index these sites, like indeed.com and simplyhired.com.  So how does Twitter job search help us?

Another thing raises a large flag for me: how do you stop the spam?  If Twitter (and the internet in general) has taught us anything, spam will be a big issue.  It is easy to simply limit the accounts searched to those of companies, but what about the large percentage of companies which use external agencies?  Ok, let’s say we allow those agencies to be apart of the search.  Who are the gatekeepers here?  The only reason we have job boards today is because it already solved the spam issue, filtering the quality job postings from the spam.  How is this model different?

I have a big problem with ideas which see social networking sites and being a free ticket to success.  It takes a lot of time, and therefor money, to be successful using social media, and I don’t see Twitter job postings as being any exception.

As an early adapter, you might just have some quality candidates find your way, but as the use increases, so will the garbage.  Hopefully I’m proved wrong, maybe I’ve been reading too much Andrew Keen, but I’m just not sold on the idea.

Why I like Google Buzz:

• It’s right beside my gmail.  Winer doesn’t seem to like this, but I do.
• Commenting on posts.   @replying is just confusing, and if you’re not attached to your twitter stream it’s sometimes hard to follow what they are @’ing about.
• The “Like” button.
• Realtime updates.
• It’s made by Google (I’ll explain below, try not to shout “fanboi” too soon)

Why I don’t like it:

• Apparently, (I haven’t looked myself) the API is very weak, and it isn’t openly compatible.
• Not available outside of gmail?
• No retweet? How do I pass on information?
• It’s made by Google (hah, see?)

Let me explain why I like that this is a Google product and why I don’t.  I love that Google is taking on this space because I know they will enhance it.  Let’s face it, there is nothing new here that we haven’t seem from Friendfeed, Facebook, or Twitter.  It’s all been done before, and as Robert Scoble points out… Friendfeed probably did it better.  Why I like Google driving it is because they will upgrade, and they’ll do it quickly.  Hopefully we’ll see Scoble’s “Super Tweet“, and all the other requests we’ve seen from the tech community that Twitter had been hopelessly slow to implement.  I also like Google doing it because my friends and family will actually use it.  (Please, oh please, get them off Facebook.)  And what about enterprise?  I haven’t had a chance to check out if this will integrate into Google enterprise offerings, but I would love to see this integrated.  Will most employers use Yammer?  Probably not.  But Google buzz is a better possibility.  Since all the advertising hype is centered around Social Media these days, is using Google enterprise products giving a company an online competitive advantage?  How long will it take for Buzz posts to commonly show up in Google Social Search results or Google Realtime results?

At the same time I’m excited about using Buzz I’m also afraid I’m using Google’s multi-colour bricks to seal myself into a Google corner.  I already use almost every service they make available, is there a danger Google having too much control?  I am worried to see the innovation on the internet sputter just like OS development with Microsoft.

Another quick thought: Is Twitter’s openness also a huge liability?  I already have 50 Buzz friends, almost entirely from Twitter.  Will I need Twitter in a Month?

Ok, great, collaboration finally reaches the news sites, but why stop there?  Ultimately the news is created by people not by new stations, they just dig up the stories and choose which ones get the attention.

I just read about an idea to use twitter hashtags for job seekers/job creaters and thought that this idea might be adapted to news outlets.  A common citizen journalis seeing first hand a news-worthy event could write in #NEWS or #CNN for instance.  This might be a little redundant since news-worthy twitters are already crowdsourced to the masses if its popular, but its an interesting idea to speed up the process and allow news outlets to find twitters quicker. 

It would be interesting experimentation also if news agencies started keeping better track of people.  I should be able to read a story on Steve Jobs, click on his name, and see all the news articles on him.  Build on this, find out what people are saying about him on Twitter, blogs etc. add that content as well.  

With this Facebook Connect test I think we’ll see a full blown implementation soon.   Soon (I hope) I’ll be able to go on CNN and see what my friends are saying about certain articles.  I don’t think this will be complete though until CNN adds a whole lot more content to their site, even if its from outside sources (or user generated contect).