VC touts Twitter integrated search, featured users

Update with comment from Biz Stone at the bottom.

In a presentation to a group of TV executives, Fred Wilson (an investment analyst at Union Square Ventures, one of Twitter's investors) showed off what appears to be integrated search in Twitter.

Integrated Twitter search with "featured users."

(Credit: Fred Wilson on Slideshare)

As seen on slide 22 of Wilson's presentation, this new version of Twitter features a whole page, framed in the Twitter user interface, that shows real-time search results and trending topics, such as those currently seen on Search.twitter.com along with a brand-new "featured user" element on the right.

We have known that integrated search has been coming for some time, and Biz Stone even wrote that it Twitter would start testing integrated search in February, so this is no shocker. It is interesting to see how the microblogging service might be going about implementing it, though.

I have to note that in comparing Biz's small screen capture in the Twitter Blog post linked above to this one from Fred Wilson's presentation, it appears that Wilson's shot might be older, so Twitter's integrated search might look different in its current state.

Startup culture, the Internet, and Television

One of the really interesting parts about this screenshot is the presence of the "featured user" in the right sidebar. This example shows ESPN being a featured user. Could this be Twitter's long-awaited plan to make money?

Forbes noted last month that Twitter is working on being able to sell analytical Twitter data to businesses, but this could be a nice supplementary revenue stream. The details of how this "featured user" program might work are obviously unclear, as all we have to go on is this screenshot, but I think that it's safe to assume that Twitter will charge people for a spot as a featured user.

As always, we will have more on this, as it develops. If you want to take a look, Wilson's presentation with the new Twitter features on slide 22 is embedded on the right.

Update
Biz Stone has just gotten back to us with a comment on Featured Users. It doesn't look like Twitter has plans to monetize Featured Users in the near future. Here's what he had to say:

"Featured Users and Suggested Users are pretty much the same thing. Right now we have Suggested Users and we're testing search results pages with Featured Users. Right now the Suggested or Featured users are similar to Staff Picks at your local book store. Eventually we'd like to get a little smarter there and maybe do recommendations but it works fine for now."

[zcollvee]

cool. but the ones you posted earlier were different

[fredwilson-vc]

oh, the perils of publicly sharing slide decks. i wasn't actually showing off that feature, which 1% of users have right now for testing purposes, i was showing off a search on a tv show to explain how much chatter there is about tv shows on twitter. i forgot that i was using a feature not everyone has when i posted the slide deck to slideshare. oh well, good reporting Harrison.

[harrisonh1]

Sorry about that Fred. If I didn't grab it, someone else probably would have. Wasn't even digging for a story, just noticed it while checking out your deck out of genuine interest. Hopefully it didn't get you into too much trouble with the Twitter guys.

On another note, you have really been on a great run on your blog lately.

--
Harrison

[gravity7]

Isn't this the feature that was used for the skittles twitter home page takeover? There it worked like gangbusters. Ironically, not as a search tool, but to attract and aggregate posts on skittles.

Interestingly, this integrated search feature, because it is real-time, could spawn conversations as much as deliver search results!

adrian chan