Issue No. 21

Status Updates from Twitter, Facebook on the Move

Microsoft has struck a deal with Facebook to include its news feed updates in Bing's searches (Bing is Microsoft's search engine). Bing, it's important to note, powers search on Facebook.

Not to be outdone, tweets by users on Twitter have also hit the big-time: they're now going to be featured in search results in both Bing and Google.

This is great for users because Twitter is often the place to get first-person, "on-the-ground" reports of breaking news or leaking information. By seeing real-time results of tweets from Twitter relating to any given topics in context with other information, particularly reports researched, verified and edited by professional journalists, can be a powerful way to stay informed.

An increased volume of searches overall, which these moves most certainly will accomplish, creates more opportunities for advertisers to insert relevant messages when and where audiences are expressing a related interest. The challenge for advertisers, of course, is keeping track of rising and falling memes (or topics) in order to place timely bids on keywords or phrases relating to those topics or issues that are suddenly on the rise. Still, it's an opportunity.

Global 'Momentness', Brought to You by Microsoft

In a column for MediaPost, Yield Software VP of Marketing, Derek Gordon wrote about the coming inclusion of real-time status updates in search. This is an excerpt from the column:

Laurie Sullivan ran a story last week in MediaPost wherein she looked at how Google might use its increased access to the Twitter feed of constantly-updating tweets through its new Google Social Search. I loved the headline: "Search Engines Move Into A Zen Moment". Overshadowed by announcements earlier in the week that Microsoft's Bing will now feature status updates from both Twitter and Facebook, Google was anxious to make its own splash.

But what really got me was this line from Laurie's reporting: Being "in the moment" could possible [sic] emerge as a Zen marketing and advertising strategy as search engines move toward pulling in real-time status updates from Twitter and other social network sites.

As a lifelong San Francisco Bay Area resident, I can tell you that "being in the moment" is taught beginning in kindergarten and represents something of a religion in these parts. So, not such a new idea. But as it relates to search, the concept is intriguing - the idea that as more and more people provide updates about anything and everything, we might get to a globally-shared "momentness". Read more. >>

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