Google and Microsoft both have deals with Twitter?

October 22, 2009 – 2:56 pm – No Comment

Google said that it has reached a deal to show content and Tweets from Twitter though its searches. Marissa Mayer, the vice president of search products and user experience, said on Google’s website that the deal had been reached on the same day that Microsoft announced that Bing had come up with a similar deal with Twitter.

“We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months,” Mayer wrote.

Both of the search companies want to provide the kind of real time search results that Twitter and other social networking sties are using. Microsoft has gone a step further than Google by having a second agreement with Facebook. With that deal, financial terms were released and Microsoft will have a $240 million ownership stake in the company.

Real time search results are something that makes traditional search engines like Google and Yahoo interested. They don’t have real time search abilities and most sites have to be indexed before they can be searched. With real time search results, instant knowledge of an event can be sought. For example, if your Gmail account isn’t working, you can search on Twitter to see if you’re the only one experiencing the problem or if other people are having the same issue.