The Social

Updated 4:30 p.m. PDT with additional details from Google.

It was indeed a nonexclusive deal: Google is going to be indexing real-time Twitter messages in search results, in a deal announced just hours after Microsoft debuted integration of "tweets" into its own search engine, Bing.

A post on the official Google blog by Vice President of Search Marissa Mayer explained it: "We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months," the post read. "That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you'll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information."

Google has "reached an agreement," but the search results have not gone live like Microsoft's have on Bing. Reports started to surface earlier this month that Twitter was in separate talks with both Google and Microsoft--which also has a deal with Facebook that will be launching down the road.

Google plans to turn on the service "soon," said Johnna Wright, product manager for Google Search, declining to provide further details. The company has been working on this "complicated" problem for some time, she said; Mayer said earlier this year that microblogging search was a priority for Google in 2009.

It's just way too difficult to manually crawl Twitter for tweets, said Jack Menzel, group product manager for Google Search. Google would have to bombard Twitter's servers constantly via its public API, and the result wouldn't be pretty for anyone. So, instead Google and Twitter have cut a deal where Google is essentially licensing a data feed from Twitter to get that information in search results.

How will it be presented? Google isn't ready to talk about that yet in detail, but Wright said tweets would be presented within regular search results. "Relevancy is paramount," Menzel said, but it's also tricky: sometimes you might want the result from the guy with only 30 followers who knows what's happening on a given street corner, sometimes you might want the industry expert's quick take on a product announcement.

So will Facebook strike a Google deal, too? Onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said that Facebook has "nothing to announce" regarding rumors of a search deal with Google.

Google wants to work with lots of different companies that are providing this type of information, Menzel said, although he declined to comment on any specific company. Following Google's announcement regarding Twitter, it announced a Google Labs product called Social Search for organizing streams of status updates and news feeds.

(Credit: Bing)

SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft is indeed bringing real-time search results from Facebook and Twitter to its Bing search engine thanks to two partnerships, search head Qi Lu and senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi announced at the Web 2.0 Summit here on Wednesday.

The Twitter partnership, which will bring all real-time public tweets to Bing, went live in beta on Wednesday at Bing.com/twitter. The Facebook deal, which will access all information shared publicly on the social network, will arrive "at a later date," Mehdi said. It's all part of Bing's strategy to harness "the emerging hot area of real-time information," he added.

No financial terms were disclosed for either deal; in a talk later on Wednesday at Web 2.0 Summit, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said that "no money changed hands" in its deal with Microsoft.

"You have to do more visual things, you have to do more sophisticated things, and you have to have better access to data," Mehdi said.

This will also give Microsoft an edge on Google, which currently has no such deals in place--but both Facebook, in which Microsoft has a financial stake, and Twitter are rumored to also be talking to Google as well. (Editor's note: Separately, Google announced a similar deal with Twitter on Wednesday.)

The Twitter deal is nonexclusive, Lu said. He did not comment on Facebook.

Users of the Bing Twitter search can see tweets that match a search query listed in pure chronological order, much like Twitter's own search engine (which it built in with the acquisition of a third-party app called Summize). But you also have the option to see search results in a mode that Mehdi called "best match," where he explained that Bing's team will "apply a bunch of our search techniques and relevancy to improve the results." This will mean that popular tweets and heavily retweeted tweets are brought higher up in results, and spam and duplicate results (as well as adult content) will be filtered out.

The Bing Twitter search also aggregates information around hot topics that goes far deeper than Twitter's "trending topics": the most popular links shared on a given topic, for example, and a way to see where shortened URLs redirect. (R.I.P., Rickroll.)

The 'top links' feature in Bing's Twitter search.

(Credit: Bing)

It's still a work in progress, largely because Facebook and Twitter themselves are changing rapidly as well. "Facebook and Twitter, especially Twitter, are really emerging communication platforms, just a lot of growth and the dominant usage patterns...are still evolving in many ways," said Lu, who recently made the jump from Yahoo to Microsoft.

This post was expanded at 2:54 p.m. PDT.

Microsoft executive Qi Lu will reportedly make a big announcement onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco later on Wednesday morning: that its search engine, Bing, has inked deals with both Twitter and Facebook to bring real-time status updates and tweets into search results. That's something you can't find on Google.

According to AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, neither partnership will actually turn into a product for "weeks, if not months," and that both Twitter and Facebook have also been talking to Google about similar deals.

When asked about the deal announcement earlier on Wednesday at Web 2.0 Summit, Microsoft director of search Stefan Weitz declined to comment, saying, "I have no idea."

Facebook's mum, too. "We don't comment on speculation," a statement e-mailed on Wednesday morning by Facebook spokeswoman Kathleen Loughlin read. "Later today, COO Sheryl Sandberg and VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer will be speaking at Web 2.0 at which time they will be available to answer questions regarding Facebook."

Rumors started swirling earlier this month that Twitter was looking to make big search-results partnerships with Google and Microsoft.

Microsoft already has a stake in Facebook, which it obtained when it invested $240 million in the social network--allegedly beating Google to the punch then, too--two years ago.

While Twitter is far smaller than Facebook, it's already a step ahead in searchability: it acquired third-party Twitter search app Summize last year and built it into the powerful, real-time Twitter Search. Facebook used to keep all of its data behind a log-in wall, but two years ago started to make the first steps toward becoming more accessible to search engines when it gave members the option to let their profiles show up in "people search" queries on the likes of Google.

More recently, it's been making additional small moves toward opening profile content to the Web, like redefining its privacy controls so that members can specify which of their information and updates can be made public.

This post was updated at 9:53 a.m. PT.

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.

It might not be as hotly anticipated as the "Beatles: Rock Band" game, but Microsoft announced at its annual press briefing at the E3 Expo that Facebook and Twitter will be coming to the Xbox Live service.

The press event included short demonstrations of what are effectively Facebook and Twitter clients for the gaming console, aesthetically adapted to the Xbox Live interface.

With the Facebook app, which will be a download from Xbox Live, members will be able to engage in a limited number of features including photo browsing, status updates, and looking at friends' profile "streams."

But what's more important to game developers is the fact that the Facebook Connect standard--which was rolled out first to Web developers, and then to iPhone developers--is coming to the Xbox this fall. This means that players will be able to log in with their Facebook accounts and broadcast their gaming activities on their social-network profiles.

Xbox manufacturer Microsoft made a $240 million investment in Facebook in October 2007. The service now has well over 200 million active users around the world.

Both Facebook products are "penciled in for the fall," Facebook platform program manager Gareth Davis told CNET News. He said that while there currently aren't plans to bring Facebook's virtual currency plans to the Xbox, he implied that it's not out of the question. "We're constantly looking at ways of improving the user experience or the developer experience with Facebook credits," Davis said.

This post was updated at 2:26 p.m. PT with comment from Facebook.

With a new product called Vine, Microsoft is tackling the issue that, in the Digital Age, contact management is no longer static--where you are and what you're doing at a given moment can matter just as much as what your cell phone number is. But instead of focusing on roving business travelers, Vine's slant is community management and emergency preparedness. It's in a private beta test right now.

Here's how it works. You download a "dashboard" application, and then you log in with your Windows Live account. Its interface takes the form of a map, where geo-tagged notifications pop up if a news story or public safety announcement--sourced from 20,000 news sources as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)--happens in a specific location. (You can set preferences to only display stories from locations and areas of interest that you care about.)

Your contacts are also listed on the dashboard, where you can check out alerts that they've sent you or even just keep tabs on their Facebook status messages. "Alerts" pop up like instant messages (or text messages, as you can opt to get them on your cell phone). You can also "check in" to let your neighbors know you're at home safe if, say, there's a tornado on the rampage outside, or if you're out of town.

Existing real-time, find-who's-where applications typically have a nightlife slant, like Buzzd and Foursquare. But Microsoft hopes that the same tools of convening can be used to organize community activities and stay in touch in the event of an emergency.

The company has unveiled the product in its home city of Seattle, and, according to the Seattle Times, plans to beta-test it there in addition to a rural Midwestern town and an "isolated island community," which makes the whole thing sound just a little bit Dharma Initiative. Just a little.

All joking aside, the Web's biggest players are gunning for a way to appropriately harness social media for emergency preparedness. Google's nonprofit Google.org arm has launched a project called Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster (InSTEDD) with similar goals, and Google has invested $5 million in it. InSTEDD does not have a live software product yet, but organizers have said that it plans to use, among other things, a mash-up of SMS alerts and the Google Earth mapping application.

Social-news site Digg has ended its advertising partnership with Microsoft more than a year before the deal was set to expire. Instead of relying on Microsoft as its exclusive ad partner, Digg will now primarily use the internal sales force it recently began building; Microsoft will handle remnant inventory.

"Starting July 1, Microsoft will sell network inventory for Digg through the Microsoft Media Network, which it has been doing successfully for the last year and a half," a statement from Microsoft read. "Digg has created its own internal sales executive team, and we respect their decision to sell their owned-and-operated site inventory directly to help further accelerate their growth as a company."

Digg's contract with Microsoft, intended to be a three-year deal, started in mid-2007, when the company chose it over Google. At the time, founder Kevin Rose applauded the decision because it would let Digg's employees focus on feature development while leaving ad sales to a more experienced team.

The revised contract is a blow to Microsoft, which touted the Digg deal as a big victory at its debut. But it also is yet another signal that advertising on the Web is changing significantly.

According to a ClickZ report, Digg's internal sales team will focus on "custom, non-IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) inventory combined with standardized banner ads." This strategic decision--to move away from a reliance on the traditional IAB display units that have defined digital advertising for years--comes at a time when the best way to advertise on a social-media site is a matter of debate and uncertainty.

Social network Facebook also has a display ad contract with Microsoft (in addition to a $240 million investment) but has been putting more emphasis on the experimental "Engagement Ads" product that it packages and markets in-house. The News Corp.-owned MySpace, meanwhile, relies more heavily on traditional display ads.

By most accounts, MySpace is ahead of Facebook in the monetization game. It has a bigger foothold in the United States, where ad dollars are easier to come by than overseas, and it's willing to make advertising significantly more pervasive with full-page "wrap" campaigns--not to mention the fact that it has News Corp.'s media connections.

But with Digg choosing to go the Facebook route (sort of), especially given the bleak advertising climate, this could be a sign that more players in the tech industry have started to regard the next generation of digital ads as a more profitable route.

"It's not unusual for someone in the social media space to have a lot of custom units, because they're forging new territory," said Debra Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer. "A lot of people say that by the time the IAB comes out with a standard, the ad format is, (while) not necessarily passe, certainly not the cutting edge."

Williamson noted that not only is Digg changing its ad focus, it's looking to make new hires to expand its team. "That does put a stake in the ground, and it does say that a company like Digg is serious about looking beyond the banner, so as to speak, that they're really looking to develop new ways of advertising and that they're looking to bring on new people to help them do that."

Whether or not Madison Avenue will agree is a different story.

This post was expanded at 1:15 p.m. PT.

It's not like we didn't see this one coming: Microsoft and Google are apparently chomping at the bit in an attempt to make a search-advertising deal with Twitter, AllThingsD reported Thursday.

"Many think Twitter's real-time search of its 140-character 'tweets' posted by users on the service will become the next great battlefield in search," AllThingsD's Kara Swisher wrote. Indeed, Twitter's search has been front and center since it acquired third-party search app Summize and integrated it into its own site. "Google currently dominates the general search market, with third-place Microsoft struggling to get more share."

Twitter currently serves no ads, search or otherwise, with the exception of the rare "sponsored" company like ExecTweets.

The catch, according to AllThingsD, is that neither company has really made up its mind as to whether Twitter will continue its explosive growth or whether it'll end up as little more than just a hyped-up fad. Considering these days of tight budgets, it's not surprising that even a huge tech company would think twice before signing a deal that potentially might not have the greatest return on investment.

Earlier this month, the rumors were all about whether Google would actually acquire Twitter--rumors that no one seemed to be able to agree on. Google has already purchased two short messaging services: Dodgeball, which it eventually shut down, and Jaiku, a once-direct Twitter rival whose future is now uncertain. Twitter CEO Evan Williams already has ties to Google, too; he sold Blogger to it back in the day.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has a $240 million stake in Facebook--which apparently did try to buy Twitter--as well as display ad deals with both Facebook and Digg. Ironically, when Microsoft made its $240 million investment, Google was widely rumored to be vying for it as well.

MySpace announced Monday a twofold partnership with Microsoft: first, a MySpace mobile application for Windows Mobile phones, and second, support for Microsoft's Silverlight technology in the News Corp.-owned social network's developer platform.

The Windows Mobile application will be available this summer for Windows Mobile 6.1 phones and then more broadly in the fall. It'll be preloaded on Windows Mobile phones manufactured by LG, too. The app joins existing MySpace mobile products for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Sidekick, Palm, and Nokia handsets.

As for the Silverlight announcement, this means that developers building applications for MySpace's platform--which is based on the Google-created OpenSocial standard--have access to Adobe Flash competitor.

The announcements themselves are fairly mundane. But here's what's really interesting: Microsoft has invested $240 million in Facebook, which was at one point the second-place name in social networking--behind MySpace. But while MySpace still has more users in the U.S., Facebook is now significantly bigger worldwide.

In recent months, perhaps as a reaction to Facebook's explosive growth and domination of the social-networking landscape, MySpace has been making numerous efforts to return to its roots as a music and media hub.