(Credit:
Twitter, screengrab by ReadWriteWeb)
The industry buzz is that searchability is one of Twitter's killer features, and indeed, it looks like the microblogging service is starting to put it more front and center. Some Twitter users have reported that the toolbar in the right-hand corner of Twitter.com is now displaying a search box and access to a list of "trends"--fast-rising terms and topics that members are chatting about. It looks like the company is either testing it out or doing the gradual rollout thing.
I unfortunately don't have access to it yet, so I can't take a direct screen grab or test things out for myself, but some lucky blogger over at ReadWriteWeb has the magic search features enabled already and took a screenshot.
Twitter's focus on search started when the company acquired Summize, a search tool built using Twitter's developer API (application programming interface) and turned it into the Twitter Search feature.
What's interesting is that Twitter may also have another motive: driving homepage traffic. Many prolific Twitterers choose to use third-party applications like Twitterific, TweetDeck, and Twhirl to access the service. That's led to occasional ambiguity regarding Twitter's traffic and usage, because traditional Web statistics don't take that into account.
If Twitter, which still hasn't unveiled its shadowy business model, were to start rolling out advertisements, it'd be to the company's advantage to give members more reason to actually use the Twitter.com site. Making it more feature-intensive is an obvious option.
That said, all indications we've seen have pointed to a non-advertising business model for Twitter--especially given the downturn in ad revenues stemming from the current bleak market conditions. More likely, it'll offer some sort of paid plan for corporations that want to capitalize on the buzzworthy service in one way or another.
This post was updated at 10:55 a.m. PT.
Twitter has indeed acquired Summize, a nifty search engine built specifically to index Twitter posts, TechCrunch reported Tuesday along with a video of Twitter founder Evan Williams talking about it.
The news follows sporadic rumors that were accompanied by both shaky confirmations and shaky denials. An under-the-radar blogger, Josh Chandler, reported the news first; GigaOM's Om Malik was the first big name to "confirm" it.
Some logistics, as reported by TechCrunch: five of Summize's six employees will become Twitter employees, minus founder Jay Verdy, who will depart the company for "a new project." Naturally, no one's naming numbers--though the Silicon Alley Insider puts it at around $15 million. The transaction was, reportedly, mostly in stock.
So what does this mean? Basically, that Twitter won't have to build its own search engine. Simple enough.
This post was updated at 10:27 a.m. PT.
Over the past day, a flurry of tech blogs has bloomed with rumors that microblogging service Twitter might buy Summize, a nifty Twitter search engine.
The juicy news was first reported by a virtually unknown blogger, Josh Chandler. And with all the chatter, you'd think it were the next AOL-Bebo. That's because the world of tech blogs (and this one is no exception) has a remarkable tendency to ignore the fact that Twitter is still largely a foreign concept outside the digitally astute and that there are plenty of avid Twitter users who still don't know what Summize is.
The rumor is also still a good deal unfounded. GigaOM wrote that "it is not just a rumor and a deal is certainly in the works." Silicon Alley Insider wrote that "a source close to the company tells us it's not true."
Neither Twitter nor Summize was immediately available for comment.
As far as acquisitions go, this one would at least make sense. Twitter's own search functions are limited, and Summize has proven to be one of the more impressive applications built on Twitter's application program interface (API). It's proven useful for searching up-to-the-minute conversations, a helpful tool to see what people are saying across the Web.
The problem would be, as Chandler himself points out, that Twitter has plenty of its own issues and an acquisition could be distracting, to put it nicely. With Twitter's own stability and profitability still on the line, this promising start-up could easily make a wrong turn if it lets that fresh $15 million in funding get to its head.
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