Earlier this week Yahoo! revealed its latest move in the ‘social game’ and announced that just like Google and Bing, it has also struck a deal with Twitter to integrate real-time tweets with its search engine results, something that Google has been doing since the end of 2009.
However, unlike Google and Bing, Yahoo! will not only be incorporating real-time Twitter feeds into its search engine results pages, but also allowing Twitter users to tweet from a number of its platforms, such as Yahoo! Mail, News, Finance and Sports as well as the search engine itself.
The search integration actually went live earlier this week, but it is not currently known how or when the further integration throughout the rest of Yahoo!’s collection of products is likely to occur, although it has been speculated that it won’t be until later this year.
At the end of 2009 Yahoo! also integrated its services with Facebook and has been trying to increase its profile in the social world ever since and are hoping that this latest deal with Twitter will do just that. Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of the company’s consumer products group said: “We’re turning the key to the online social universe – you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo!”. He went on to say “We’re also simplifying people’s lives by bringing their social worlds – and the world – together for easy access.”
Twitter is also said to be very excited and enthusiastic about the collaboration, and rightly so, as it will be the one seeing the greatest advantages, as it will not only be increasing its audience to the millions of Yahoo! users worldwide, but Yahoo! are also paying Twitter for the privilege.
Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone has said: “The information in one single tweet can travel light-years farther with this Yahoo! integration. Tweets in more places brings relevance where and when you need it most.”
So it looks like things are looking up for Yahoo! with the announcement of this partnership and also that the its search deal with Microsoft has also been approved by regulators.