Twitter on the verge of big search deals?

Are Microsoft and Google hoping to get into Twitter's treasure trove of real-time information? Yes, says Kara Swisher of AllThingsD, citing sources who indicate that the two companies are separately in talks with Twitter about data licensing deals.

This would involve the exchange of several million dollars plus a revenue-share to "compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets of its 54 million monthly users," Swisher wrote.

What's unclear is whether either deal will actually come to fruition. More concrete is the likelihood that Twitter won't strike any exclusive deals, considering the company is (according to Swisher) "seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers."

Twitter, which just raised about $100 million at a valuation somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion, doesn't have a significant revenue stream in place yet. It's slated to launch a premium-services package later this year, but big search-data deals with the likes of Microsoft and Google could be a significant additional source of cash.

Something that could be complicated for Microsoft, should it choose to pursue this opportunity with Twitter: It has a stake in Facebook, which has been making moves to make its own stash of real-time information--potentially far richer than Twitter's, with 300 million active users posting links, photos, status messages, and what-have-you--more searchable and open. Facebook has gone a long way from keeping all its content behind a log-in wall, but Twitter still wins in the openness category.

A recent minor product launch from Facebook, the "Gross National Happiness" app, illustrates this by using keywords in status message content to track how "happy" the Facebook population is on a given day.

[SeanMcAlister]

Great Article Caroline!
Twitter execs seem as if they like to create a lot of buzz to further fuel their exponential growth but then continually turn down deals. Their numbers are impressive and they exposure is out of this world!

There is no doubt that they have a lot of stuff in the works from their geo-locator to the talk of premium services and more.

You had mentioned twitter and search engines which made me think of the newly released Twuggle
http://www.Twuugle.com

This is positioned right now as a Twitter Search Engine, although it seems as if they are positioning themselves as the go to search engine for all of Social Media with their recent release of their
Facebook Search (beta)

This Twitter Search Engine / Social Media Search EngineIt incorporates the power of Google but is specific to Twitter and one of the best Twitter tools for targeted Niche Research that I have found....
and now they have upped the anty with their Rockin Facebook Search!

All the results are from Twitter or Facbook. This is a very clean, simple but Powerful Search Engine!...
Unlike other Twitter Search Sites Twuugle is free from all the noise and enables you to hone in on specifics.

Apparently they have quite a few releases planned that will be incorporating things like Twitter?s planned release of the geolocator, Twitter apps, video's and more.... including an advanced search
feature.

There is so much happening in the world of Social Media it is almost too difficult to keep up with!
But businesses who understand Social Media will undoubtably grow as a result of proper use of it.

Love your articles! Keep em coming :-) And be sure to check out http://www.Twuugle.com
I love it!

Sean

[jessiethe3rd]

Let the hype machine go! Twitter has been getting free advertising every where and there is a lot of expectations for this engine... it'll be interesting to see what pans out.

[Harrison912]

I mainly use Twitter and FaceBook to socially market my safety and security web site so this sounds like ti could benefit me. Who knows. Thanks, Caroline.

[Gianni_Simplicio]

Does Twitter really contain any useful information? Actually, why is it useful at all? It's like a facebook 'status', but limited to short bits of text.

Really, someone please help me out with this. I've signed up, and even read other people's posts on occasion, but I can't for the life of me understand the popularity.