metapeople Hong Kong

Bing announced a close to real time Twitter search integration, by yesterday Oct 21st, 2009. Google announced a similar deal with Twitter just a short time after. The difference between the two services is that bing is already able to search both - Facebook and Twitter. But it seems just a matter of time that Google will join the party.

However, Bing seems to be slightly ahead of Google with the integration of their web search in Facebook.

Internet executive of Microsoft, Mr. Qi Lu used the announcement to declare Microsoft’s search engine Bing would become the best way for finding out what people are saying in their “tweets.” The Bing search would be even better than Twitter’s own search with an even higher performance.

The Twitter messages consisting of no more than 140 characters can be posted from Internet-connected computers or mobile devices, enabling people to either share mundane details about their lives or intriguing news and comments from all over the world - a revolution and a challenge in Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Optimization combination due to this announcement.

Right now, searching Twitter is probably much more informative and delivers more results because there are less Facebook users who agreed in making their account public. These security settings keep search engines from indexing private information.

Currently Facebook has an explicit agenda to change the setting due to more public Facebook activity makes deals like the one it made as Bing with Twitter much more valuable.

However, Google still needs Twitter data to combat with Facebook’s social dominance - Facebook is still five to ten times as big as Twitter is today.