Bing vs. Google: Search Engine wars continued

Given that “real-time” search has been on Microsoft’s and Google’s agendas for a while, the recent announcement about Bing’s partnership with Facebook and Tweeter that promises to integrate real-time status updates and tweets into search results is not surprising. In fact, Twitter was in independent discussions with both companies earlier and Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, talked about the importance of real-time search not long ago:

“I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real time search. At first, my team laughed and did not believe me. Now they know they have to do it. Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about realtime.”

Real time data could enhance a search engine by identifying current hot topics, improving search results and delivering more targeted advertising. While Twitter and Facebook both have talked to Google about similar arrangements, Microsoft was first to announce the deal. Microsoft finally had something Google did not have. However, that did not last long. Just a few hours later Google was back in the game. The company announced a nonexclusive deal with Twitter to include updates on its search engine (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/rt-google-tweets-and-updates-and-search.html ).

Microsoft might get an advantage since its Tweeter search feature in beta has already gone live while Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer said: “we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months”. I think that even if Bing will gain an advantage, it will be short-term. Rather sooner than later Google will launch a search service that would index content from Twitter and I believe it will do it better than Bing does now. In a long run, Microsoft's deal will not have any significant impact on Google's market share.

Twitter and Facebook will certainly get some benefits from the deal. First of all, potentially Bing or Google can do a much better job at searching tweets and Facebook status updates than the sites’ own engines. Twitter’s search engine, for example, is slow and search results are hard to navigate. In addition, the two sites will gain even more attention and popularity. Finally, the companies get an undisclosed amount of money in exchange for their data.

As a website manager I would follow the trends and if possible incorporate real-time data into my websites. I would also add "Follow Us on Twitter" and Facebook links.