Google and Bing Reach Real Time Search Agreements With Twitter

Yesterday, at the Web 2.0 Summit, Marissa Mayer announced Google’s partnership with Twitter to include Twitter updates in Google's search results.

"We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data" says Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience at Google. "We look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you'll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information."

It happened a few hours after Microsoft made its announcement to bring real-time tweet data to Bing. But while Bing made their Twitter search available immediately after their public statement, Google says it will be released in the coming months.

In an announcement, Microsoft says:

"We’re glad you asked that. Because today at Web 2.0 we announced that working with those clever birds over at Twitter, we now have access to the entire public Twitter feed and have a beta of Bing Twitter search for you to play with (in the US, for now). Try it out. The Bing and Twitter teams want to know what you think."

Microsoft has also signed a similar deal with Facebook, a social networking site that has six times as many users as Twitter.

Tweets and any other real time data stream are of a great value to search engine giants because for numerous types of searches (such as breaking news, local events, shopping, just to name a few), the most recent information is very likely to be the most relevant as well.

"Twitter is producing millions of tweets every minute on every subject you can imagine. The power of those tweets as a form of data that can be surfaced in search is enormous. Innovative services like Twitter give us access to public opinion and thoughts in a way that has not before been possible,"  admits Microsoft.

So, what does it mean for you? Now it is more important then ever to daily monitor real-time search trends and spot hot topics. Then, craft content that meets demand and link it from Twitter.