Good assessment of this article. Although I do agree that Twitter search is being overhyped right now. Big time. It's basically the only thing left to hype so TechCrunch et al are milking it for all it's worth.
Twitter search is useful as an opinion poll or for updates on breaking news, but only so much depth and value can fit into 140 characters. More than anything, I think Twitter thrives off vanity and narcissism. It's millions of people saying "look at me" and it's even easier to main and establish popularity than a blog.
I was interested in a (very recent) event that Twitter offered the absolute BEST coverage for, all via search.twitter.com: the NHL trade deadline.
Traditional news sources, blogs, TSN.ca, ESPN, Globe & Mail, etc all were slow on updates and commentary about prospective trades and evaluations of minor-league talent. I used search.twitter.com and searched for "#nhltrade" and "nhl" and had a constant stream of news and information. And by subscribing to the very best sources of news I could find there, I was notified of trades via SMS.*
Sure, it isn't "search" the way most people think about it, but its the best search for a specific use case.
* A side note: this allowed me to stay up to date while being slightly more productive at work. I wasn't constantly refreshing pages or listening to talk radio.
