Google Realtime Gets More Aggressive Toward Taking on Twitter
Google has rolled out an update to their real-time search component, formerly called Google Real Time, renaming it the more efficient Google Realtime and presenting it as a challenger to Twitter's own built-in real-time search engine.
Now, instead of simply an "updates" tab in the main Google search window, real-time search has been given its own URL--google.com/realtime--and appears to search all the way back to February 2010, as opposed to Twitter's more limited, approximately four-day historical search.
Despite this update, Twitter's advanced search remains far more fully featured, with searches by location, person, attitude, and more. As search becomes a larger and larger part of Twitter's business model--and as the world clamors for more and more real-time information--one wonders how Google and Twitter's relationship will evolve over the coming months and years.
Twitter currently maintains search deals with Google, Bing and Yahoo, allowing them to access the Twitter "firehose" of information from the real-time stream.
Follow Technorati