Google has launched a new feature on Twitter today which can understand emojis you tweet at the company. All you have to do is tweet an emoji and tag @Google. The Twitter account will then respond with a GIF and a link to local search results. For example, if you tweet a burger emoji, you get a tweet back saying “Search results that are… well-done. https://t.co/UmNy3lahxm #KnowNearby.” The link is to a search on Google for local burger shops.
We speak emoji. Let’s talk. 🙌 #KnowNearby pic.twitter.com/HjIMs3KPKe
— Google (@Google) December 6, 2016
According to Mashable, Google’s new emoji search feature in Twitter features support for interaction with at least 200 different emoji, ranging from foods to activities. It’s likely that the new function is an extension of Google’s Nearby goals as implied by the #KnowNearby hashtag, but it’s a rather odd way of going about it nevertheless.
Google is not oblivious to the fact that some emoji have certain associations different from what they are supposed to represent such as like the eggplant emoji or the peach emoji. Google thinks the peach emoji is supposed to mean “Bootylicious,” but others will say it means something else. There are also more varied responses to emoticons such as the poo and eggplant emoji, in case you wanted to try those out.
All in all, it’s unclear just how many people will actually use this function over something like the Google Assistant or Voice Search which are just as fast as this feature (if not faster). Of course, die-heart Twitter users will probably stick with the function for the long run as they won’t have to open a separate app until they receive a response back from Google, but for the average Google user, you’ll likely never use it more than once.
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