The good folks over at Stone Temple Consulting released an in-depth interview with Bing's Principal Group Program Manager for Bing Social Search, Paul Yiu.  The Bing social search team integrates social content and indicators into the search results to add both personalization and relevance to the search results.  Bing currently ties in data from both Facebook and Twitter to improve the overall quality of the results.  In contrast, Google only ties Google+ data into their search results pages. Eric Enge performed the interview for Stone Temple and didn't pull any punches on social indica [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Microsoft | Microsoft: Bing Social Search | Social Media Marketing | Twitter

Yandex is the next in line to gain access to the Twitter "firehose." The Russian search engine is announcing that it will begin integrating the Twitter feed into its search results. Twitter reported the deal to us late last week but declined to disclose its terms. As part of their agreement Yandex will have access to the full Twitter feed but has discretion over what it uses and how that content is ranked and displayed. According to a statement issued by Yandex: New tweets will now become available in Yandex's Blog Search results in a matter of moments. In addition to Yandex’s Blog Se [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: Search

For the past two weeks, I feel like I've been witnessing some type of Cuban Missile Crisis going on between Google, Twitter and Facebook. I'd like to suggest some ways that social-nuclear war might be averted. Beyond Blame, Believing In Cooperation Let's set aside blame, because blame isn't going to move anything forward. Let's also assume that all the players can be taken to some degree at their word, that they do indeed want to work together in some ways. What does everyone want? The Wants & A Game Changer Google has wanted its own social graph for some time. By social graph, I [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: Analysis | Google: Antitrust | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Google+ | Top News | Twitter: Business Issues

I've written that Google has plenty of public data to allow parts its new Search Plus Your World feature to be inclusive of rival social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Now, those networks are proving that true, through a new "Don't Be Evil" tool that lets anyone leverage Google's own results to see this. The tool -- a bookmarklet that works in your browser -- changes three parts of Search Plus Your World that currently shows information only from Google Plus. These are: People & Pages results Google+ Sitelinks Google+ Suggestions In Autocomplete The tool can be found on [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Facebook | Google: Antitrust | Google: Critics | Google: Google+ | Google: Search Plus Your World | Google: Sitelinks | Google: Web Search | Top News | Twitter

Many U.S. Senators and Representatives are tweeting opinions, updates, images, documents, etc. these days, and Twitter can be a very useful, if not an essential tool, to learn about what’s going on directly from each member, especially regarding controversial legislation such as SOPA. An easy to use but powerful web tool (it's also free) named PolitickerUSA can save you a lot of time and effort informing you as to what members of congress are tweeting about right now. In one location you can quickly access the non-stop real-time stream of tweets from Senators, Reps, President Obama, go [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | How To: Twitter | Search Engines: People Search | Search Engines: Real Time Search | Twitter: Search

The internet and search engines in particular are the top sources for information about local businesses, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Foundation. That's not really a surprise. But what's interesting perhaps is how many people rely on print newspapers and how few seem to rely on social media for local information, according to the survey data. Pew surveyed just over 1,000 US adults by telephone in January, 2011. What it found was that 55 percent of people "say they get news and information about local restaurants, bars, and clubs" and 60 percent "say t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News | Twitter

I'm at the new Twitter HQ (not for six months) in San Francisco with the tech press corps awaiting a Twitter press conference that I will attempt to faithfully live blog. In the meantime, here are some shots from the new space, which is three floors and exceeds 200,000 square feet. The build out should be pretty spectacular. The building was completed in the same year as the Golden Gate bridge in 1937, and has been vacant for several years. Twitter has 700 employees today and expects to be able to accomodate "thousands of people" in the coming years as Twitter scales. But it wil [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Twitter

As we reported a few months ago, Twitter has rolled out the "activities tab" for web users.  This tab allows Twitter to operate more like a classic social network as you can keep tabs on your friends... pun intended.  Here's a look at how the activitiy tab looks: This tab shows items favorited by those you follow along with new follows that are occurring. When this is rolled out to your account, expect to see a notification appear over the newly created tab. For more information, see our original story. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Twitter

Twitter and Mozilla have struck a deal that makes Twitter search one of the default search options in the new Firefox 8 web browser. It's included in the Windows, Mac and Linux versions, which can be downloaded now. As Mozilla's blog post explains, the Twitter search option can be used to search Twitter usernames, hashtags and topics (without hashtags). It's available in four languages: English, Portuguese, Slovenian and Japaneses. Mozilla says more languages will be enabled in future releases. Twitter search was previously available as a separate add-on for the Firefox search bar. T [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Firefox | Top News | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: Search

In the US roughly 40 million mobile users access social networks (broadly defined to include blogs) on their handsets on a daily basis, according to comScore. The large number of mobile-social users comes as no surprise. Facebook previously announced it had 350 million active mobile users globally. Google also sees mobile as a strategic front for social networking growth. The new version of Android ("Ice Cream Sandwich") prominently features Google+. The chart below shows comScore traffic estimates for mobile usage of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Facebook has many more mobile users th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Stats: comScore | Twitter

Google announced that Google+ has 40 million users today. Woo-hoo! That's nearly half what Twitter claims, right? And while it's below Facebook's 800 million, Google's getting there, right? Wrong. The number simply can't be compared to Facebook and Twitter. Active Users Vs. Sign-Ups Let's start with Facebook. At various points, Facebook has given out a count of how many users it has. Currently, on its stats page, Facebook claims 800 million active users. Active users are key here. By active, Facebook means people who have logged into Facebook at least once per month. Facebook has many mor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Google+ | Stats: Popularity | Top News | Twitter

As part of Google's earnings announced today, CEO Larry Page announced that Google's social network, Google+, now has 40 million members. That puts it still well behind Facebook's 800 million, closer to Twitter's 100 million, but doesn't seem to count "active" users. Page said in the earnings release: "We had a great quarter," said Larry Page, CEO of Google.  "Revenue was up 33% year on year and our quarterly revenue was just short of $10 billion. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Google+ | Stats: Relevancy | Twitter

As with Google, Twitter saw a spike in activity related to the death of Steve Jobs. However, the company said that the number of tweets per second didn't break new records. The Peak Records Twitter told us that at 5pm PT yesterday, it saw 6,049 tweets per second happening at peak, with tweets continuing throughout the night and into today. This leaves the news of Beyonce announcing her pregnancy during the MTV Video Music awards as the all-time record holder. Records to date, for tweets per second (TPS), as peak times, as has been reported by Twitter to date: 8,868 TPS: Beyonce/MTV [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Social | Stats: General | Top News | Twitter

There have been many stories in the past of criminals (of one sort or another) using Google, Foursquare and Facebook to target people who many not be home or, in the case of Google Earth and Street View, which homes to target. A recent survey of 50 convicted burglars by UK security firm Friedland Response and reported by the UK's Sky News argues that Google and social media tools are being used extensively to target people. Nearly 80 percent of the 50 ex-burglars surveyed strongly believed that Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare were being used by current criminals, and nearly 75 percent s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: Analysis | Foursquare | Google: Earth | Google: Street View | Top News | Twitter

Twitter has acquired Julpan, a small start-up search service in New York that had focused on analyzing social activity in order to improve search results. Twitter says the acquisition will be used to boost its ability to help users discover interesting content. "We're looking at how to best surface content to users based on their interest graph," said Mike Abbott, Twitter's vice president of engineering, about the purchase. Last month, Twitter rolled out a new "Activity" tab designed to help people more easily spot interesting content, part of an overall move to highlight interesting ma [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues

This week at TechCrunch Disrupt, Twitter announced Web Analytics to webmasters (and Tweeters) see how their content is being shared and how their buttons are being used.  This new platform integrates fully with the new t.co shortener to help see content distribution. During the presentation it was announced that the t.co 'link wrapper' is now making up 95% of all tweet and Twitter buttons are on more than 3 million websites.   Until now, only advertisers had any access to analytics on Twitter. Twitter now sends over 100 million clicks to sites across the web everyday, and Twitter Ana [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Twitter

Look out, Twitter users: More advertising is coming to your Twitter stream, even from accounts that you don't already follow. Twitter announced Tuesday that its Promoted Tweets program is expanding to "a small number of users," and a Twitter help page explains where those ads might appear: At the top of relevant search results pages on twitter.com. In search results for a Promoted Trend. Users' "home" timelines. Official Twitter clients. Third-party Twitter clients. Promoted Tweets have been around since April 2010 and an expected backlash never seemed to materialize. Ori [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: General | Top News | Twitter: Advertising | Twitter: Business Issues

Started just 5 years ago, Twitter announced today at the "State of the Union" that they have officially reached their 100 millionth 'active' user.  Of the active users, 55% use Twitter on their mobile devices.  Each month over 400 million unique visitors use Twitter.com alone.  Today Twitter is posting a billion tweets every five days, about 8,900 per second. Out of these 100 Million users, more than half log in to Twitter daily to use the service. Also, while  many people use the service, not all actually tweet.  40% of all of the active users simply use Twitter to follow others. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Stats: Popularity | Twitter

100 million active users. 1 billion tweets every seven days. Plans to grow the ad business. These stats and facts are part of a "State Of The Twitter" talk Twitter CEO Dick Costolo gave to the press today. Live blogging below! Dick arrives. Nothing big, he says. "I just wanted to give you a state of the union on the business." He's naming some of the people who have come on to help build the business. Jack Dorsey among those who came back in. "He speaks with the fluency of the inventor of the product," which is good to have when you have contention between groups in the company. "If y [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: General | Live Blogging | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues

Twitter and Bing announced that they have extended their deal that allows Bing to tap into Twitter's information in a cutesy exchange on Twitter itself. As for Google, which Twitter's been on the outs with since July, Twitter says there's no similar happy news to report. Dear Twitter, I Love You! Kisses, Bing Twitter spokesperson Carolyn Penner compiled the exchange using the awesome Storify service, as you'll find here: It's perhaps the first press release via Twitter conversation that I know of. Details? You Don't Need No Stinkin' Details! But how about details? How long is the de [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Features: General | Google: Real Time Search | Microsoft: Bing Social Search | Top News | Topsy | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: Search