Bing beats Google to the punch, launches Twitter search
As search wars heat up, Microsoft’s Bing takes another swing at its long-standing rival: Google 
Google Inc. has been rumored for qutie some time now, to be looking toward creating a tool for searching social networking sites, the likes of Twitter et al. However, it seems that Microsoft Corp.and its new search engine, Bing, has beat them to the punch.
Sean Suchter, general manager of Microsoft’s Silicon Valley Search Technology Center, said “The company is integrating more real-time data into its search results. Initially, Bing will be picking up tweets from only the most prominent Twitterers, such as former Vice President Al Gore and American Idol host Ryan Seacrest. In the world of high technology, Bing will pull tweets from Twitterers like Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com, and Kara Swisher, a technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal. There has been much discussion of real-time search and the premium on immediacy of data that has been created primarily by Twitter,” wrote Suchter.
He also goes on to mention: “We’ve been watching this phenomenon with great interest and listening carefully to what consumers really want in this space…. We’re not indexing all of Twitter at this time…. We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets.”
If online chatter succeeds, Bing won’t be alone for long in offering a Twitter-search feature.
A Google microblogging search service, intended to focus on finding Twitter posts has been the subject of online chatter in recent weeks. A Google spokesman wouldn’t confirm or deny the rumors.
According to Hadley Reynolds, an analyst at research firm IDC, “Google wants to be the single storehouse for the world’s information, and Twitter has to be part of that conversation,” he said. “Twitter’s own search tool has gotten mixed reviews. Google has been working on this kind of thing for 10 years and Twitter hasn’t. There is a learning curve there.”
Well – with healthy competition like this – all I can say is, us end users are sure in for a whole lot of new technologies – at its best! Bring it on!
