I agree—Twitter search is fantastic, but there are some serious limitations that are involved. At #140conf the future of Twitter panel talked about the possibility of having a Bio search integrated into Twitter, along with a way to search an individual user and the people they are following.

I think lists also throw another variable into the search mix, but until the infrastructure is built to allow us to “power search” Twitter, lists are a fantastic way for us to categorize.

Thanks for commenting.

I'm looking forward to talking with you more in the future too.

I don't mean that numbers aren't important, but what I do mean to suggest is *how* people are talking about you/your brand may be more important than *that* they're talking about you.

And yes, companies are quantifying them as we speak, and probably drawing very important conclusions from them. It's not that you can't get value from numbers.

“Definable, measurable metrics” have been our mantra for a very long time, and I don't think we need to abandon them, we just have to rethink “definable and measurable.”

For example quantitative measurements aren't the best when it comes to the content of communication. If you're analyzing a speech, you're probably going to use a qualitative communication theory to get the job done. I think we have to approach Tweets in the same way. In fact, I think there's a lot of room for a theory of communication that could rise up from a well-known process like Grounded Theory Development. Once we have a standard of comparison, then qualitative research becomes “definable and measurable,” albeit in a far different way than the raw numbers data you get from quantitative research.

Am I making any sense or addressing your question? It has been a long day…