Microsoft Gets Twitter Search First

By chris.thompson - The Big Money

One of the great brass rings in search is figuring out how to search tweets and real-time news as it updates, and it looks like Microsoft's (MSFT) Bing has beaten Google (GOOG) to the launch pad. Today, Microsoft search technology guru Sean Suchter announced that for a few thousand celebrities and notable figures, Bing will offer you a chance to read their tweets as they post them in real time. Search for Ryan Seacrest, search-engine expert Danny Sullivan, or Al Gore (we're not kidding; these are really the examples Suchter used), and Bing will flash you a box with their latest tweets, as well as a link to their Twitter page. Google, meanwhile, offers just a link and a considerably more outdated tweet.

Why does this matter to ordinary Web users? We're still trying to figure that out ourselves. But Bing and Google clearly think that offering search results that are updated second by second is the next frontier, and they're racing to capture it and the ad revenue that will come with it. BusinessWeek reporter Rob Hof suspects that Bing's new coup will give it an extra edge in the new search wars. "[F]or now, Bing's Twitter results are one thing Google doesn't offer, and that's likely to help maintain the recent positive buzz about Bing," he writes.

But we've got to concur with PC World's Jared Newman, who doesn't find Bing's new feature all that impressive. Set aside the fact that Bing's Twitter search only works for a few thousand people; the real problem is you have to search for "Ryan Seacrest" and "Twitter." Why bother doing that when you can just go to Twitter directly? In addition, Newman points out, Bing doesn't rank the subjects that said celebrity twitterers are writing about.

"I searched for 'Kara Swisher Vision Quest,' as the latter two words appear in one of her recent tweets," Newman writes. "After getting nothing on the first three pages of Bing results, I gave up. By comparison, Google listed a relevant tweet in eighth place on its front page. In fact, Google does a pretty good job of indexing Twitter searches from all users, famous or obscure."

Real time updates aren't so great if you can only search by the name of some Hollywood twinkie, rather than the subject matter of individual tweets. But this is obviously a work in progress, and Bing will roll out a better version soon. For that matter, so will Google.