Bing adds Twitter to search results

Posted on 2 Jul 2009 at 13:01

Microsoft has started to add Twitter posts to Bing search results after being drawn to the micro-blogging site's ability to instantly reflect developing topics and public sentiment.

In a blog post, Sean Suchter, General Manager of Microsoft's Silicon Valley Search Technology Center, said: "There has been much discussion of real-time search and the premium on immediacy of data that has been crated primarily by Twitter."

"We've been watching this phenomenon with great interest, and listening carefully to what consumers really want in this space. We're not indexing all of Twitter at this time... just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start.

"We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter's public API to surface Tweets in people search," he concluded.

The launch makes Microsoft the first major company to start indexing posts from Twitter, but it isn't indexing every user on Twitter at this time. Suchter admitted that Bing would initially only index "a few thousand people" based on their follower count and tweet volume - the list includes Al Gore and Ashton Kutcher.

It's expected that the number of users indexed will rise over time if the service proves successful. It's currently only available to those making search queries via the US site and requires users to include the word 'Twitter' after their search terms.

Author: Tim Smalley

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