Webware

If you're a big user of Twitter search (formerly Summize), you'll probably like Monitter three times better. That's because it lets you search for not just one word or phrase in the Twitterverse, but three at one time.

Leaving it open in a tab or window turns your browser into something like a stock ticker, with new Tweets fading in as long as they've got the word or phrase you've typed in. Each previous search is also kept as an RSS feed right below.

In addition to its simple one-page presentation, blog owners can drop it into their site with three custom keywords of their choice. You're also able to paste in multiple instances in case you want to create a giant array of keywords that continue to be tracked.

According to creator Alex Holt's Twitter feed, location awareness is coming to the next version, which means users will be able to filter tweets based on where they're searching from, something you can do with Twitter's search engine by tweaking the advanced settings. Holt says part of the inspiration for Monitter came from Adobe AIR based Tweetdeck which was one of the first tools to focus on side-by-side Twitter organization. Also mentioned is PopUrls, which was one of the inspirations for Guy Kawasaki's ever expanding AllTop feed aggregator.

[via ReadWriteweb]

Track three words or phrases from people's Twitter messages in one place with Monitter.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

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.

Social network Facebook experienced what appears to have been a very brief server outage on Tuesday morning--15 minutes, tops--but looking at Twitter keyword search site Summize, you'd think it were cause for mass panic:

(Credit: Summize)

Sad messages from Twitter.com.

Today is the day of Steve Jobs' Apple WWDC keynote. Very exciting! But it's a sad day for Twitter fans who are watching the service, already suffering from weeks of intermittent problems, collapse under the load of people who are tying to use it to talk about the Stevenote.

There are at least two initiatives for people, like me, who can't just walk away from our old friend: Summize and Twiddict.

Summize will tell you everything the Twittersphere is saying about Apple.

Summize is a Twitter search engine. It can read what's happening on Twitter and is a bit easier to deal with than the intermittent Twitter.com. Today, for the Stevenote, Twitter itself is publicizing a Summize feed that tracks Apple news (actually just the words WWDC, Apple, iPhone, and "Steve Jobs").

That doesn't help people who are having a hard time using Twitter to post to the service, or the API-based apps like Twhirl that are working worse than ever before. If you want to update Twitter during one of its outages, check out Twiddict, which will accept posts from you and queue them up until Twitter is working again. Clever, but it's clearly not a business. Furthermore, why bother updating Twitter when its recent and current outages are teaching its users--the people you're trying to reach when you post--to stay away from the site?

Twiddict lets you update Twitter even when it's down.

I've gotten some flack for my previous proposal that Twitter go offline until its scaling problems are fixed. But I stand by that idea: It's lunacy to keep a business open when you can't deliver on its brand promise. Especially, as in Twitter's case, if you're not making any money from it anyway.

Until Twitter is fixed, you can find me over on FriendFeed.