IBY #1: This is the first in what will be a series of content written by me, but Inspired By You. I’ll be calling one of my Twitter followers every week to talk to them for 15 minutes over the phone. What will we talk about? Whatever comes to mind. Honestly, I just want to get to know you. If you’re wonder why I won’t keep the conversation on Twitter, keep reading to find out. The point the is I want to show just how much inspiration can be produced from a single conversation.

This week’s IBY was made possible through: Peggy Dolane (@FreeRangeMom)

Make no mistake about it, Twitter is edging closer and closer to becoming our next search engine. Think about it; while we’re having all these awesome conversations (read: personal recommendations) with our friends and colleague, we’re still sharing great content that we’ve read (read: link backs) every single day. We even leave comments on tweets for crying out loud! Haven’t you ever wondered what could be done with all your data?

Read Between The Lines

Let’s look at the facts:

• If you’re a Twitter user (over 5 million that have sent out over 1 billion tweets), you’re probably going to use  Twitter Search or an alternative Twitter search engine at least 2 more times before the end of today.
• Search engine optimization isn’t the only thing you should be worried about. Social media optimization has arrived! <insert collective awe> I know!
• Twitter took away the real conversations a long time ago.
• ReTweets are the new linkback and are more efficient for the next level of community outreach.
• Tweets in Bing?! Enough said.
• If you think tweets aren’t apart of your online identity, don’t ever try to hire me.

It All Started When

Last year, She Geek Alana Taylor guest posted a fantastic piece on why you should stop using search engines, and use Twitter instead. This year, I officially announced Twitter as my personalized search engine in early March. Twitter aggregates all of this data that WE give it and serves it back to us freely, just like every other search engine. Lately, Twitter has been getting some serious funding and you should be just as curious as everyone else is about what Twitter will do next.

Twitter has the potential to introduce semantic search technology without the geek lingo to mainstream users. And they’ll get what makes Google so special, quality links and news updates.

Should Google be afraid? Welcome to the future of the social web.