How Will Twitter Integration Into Google, Bing Affect The Tweecosystem?

Oct 9, 2009 at 4:24pm ET by Greg Sterling

AllThingsD reported yesterday that Twitter was in independent discussions (which have happened before) with both Google and Microsoft “in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.” Reuters also picked up the story.

Bing and Google have both indicated that “real-time search” is on the agenda and this would quickly accelarate those efforts. Bing previously added “Twitter Smart Answers.” There are also third party tools to add Twitter results to both Google and Bing. And as you know Google’s relatively new search options allows people to filter by results from the “past hour.”

Google’s Larry Page not long ago emphasized the importance of real-time search:

“I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real time search. At first, my team laughed and did not believe me. Now they know they have to do it. Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about realtime.”

If the full Twitter-search integration does come, what will that do to the burgeoning community of real-time engines out there, which rely primarily on Twitter for their content and results? There are at least 10-12 players now which face potential banishment into perpetual obscurity if the deal happens and the implementation is successful. Collecta is one of the few exceptions that doesn’t rely entirely on the Twitter API. But everyone in real time search would be forced to step up to the next level of creativity and utility to survive.

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, and writes a personal blog Screenwerk, examining the broader world of media and advertising. He also posts at a Local Mobile Search, which is focused on the mobile Internet.

See more articles by Greg Sterling >

Share, Bookmark & Discuss This Article
More:

See more stories like this in the Members Library! Check out the Search Engines: Real Time Search sections of the Members Library where this story is filed. Members also get access to exclusive video content, a members-only weekly & monthly newsletter, plus more. Check out all the benefits!

FREE DAILY SEARCH NEWS RECAP!