Microsoft search engine Bing inked a deal with Twitter that includes tweets in search results. Microsoft announced the deal onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit today. The non-exclusive deal made it easy for Google to piggyback on the Bing announcement with their own announcement of a commitment to feature Tweets in search results.

Significance of the Bing / Google Twitter Announcements for Travel:

Tweets aren’t just for your followers on Twitter any more. Travel regions and tourism businesses will need to post relevant tweets and links to benefit from higher visibility among search users whether or not they are users of Twitter. Tweets will show up in Search results.

The upshot: Get tourism businesses in your region tweeting!

Twitter on Bing

Using http://bing.com/twitter will reveal relevant real time Twitter search results. Microsoft also announced that soon Facebook status updates will also be featured on the search engine. What is interesting is that Bing sample results page features the tweeted link title and sample tweets featuring the avatar (photo) and text of the tweet!

Twitter on Google

Marissa Mayer announces Google deal with Twitter at Web 2.0 Summit (youtube)

Surely the enlightenment of embedding Twitter in search results on Google was overdue.

In May this year I reported how Google was not invited to the Twitter Party, and that Twitter search was indeed a critical piece of the search puzzle for Web 3.0 – the Here and Now Web.

It appears now, Google and Twitter have come to a financial agreement that will result in tweets being featured in Google search results.

News on the Twitter deal from the Google Blog

  “Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months.”

What will Tweets in Search Results look like? We don’t know yet.

Some users of Firefox have been using a Greasemonkey script which embeds Twitter search results at the top of any Google search result as shown below.

Google itself highlighted the importance of travel regions and tourism operators making effective use of the Twitter platform on its blog post:

  “The next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

Impact of these Twitter announcements from Google and Microsoft:

  * The Here and Now Web (Web 3.0) is here. Real time search results and location relevant search results will take on greater importance.
  * Twitter will Grow in adoption as tweets get greater visibility beyond the Twitterverse.
  * A new era of search engine innovation will come about as engineers figure out how to identify relevant tweets from spam.
  * With access to Twitter search results, Google and Microsoft will need to rethink their search result algorithyms and determine how much relative importance to give to tweets.