Value of Twitter Validated by Deal With Microsoft and Google

On the heels of a deal between Twitter and Microsoft’s Bing, Google has jumped in and worked out a deal of it’s own.
Bing’s ‘Twitter search’ is live, and is hoping to be THE place to search for ‘tweets’. I personally like the look of the interface of Bing, as it shows a few for each trending topic, popular links, etc. How Google will integrate twitter search results remains to be seen, and will be a few months down the pike. It’s uncertain as to why they would not be implementing sooner, although I did find this one speculation regarding DOJ anti-trust concerns.
This not only validates the value of twitter, which many have questioned, but it also injects an unknown amount of revenue into Twitters “financial stream”. One of the many arguments regarding the value and lifespan of twitter has been it’s ‘inability to monetize”. Knowing the tremendous value of “search” in the internet world, we can only guess (for now) what the undisclosed sums were. Quoting The Huffington Post, “Microsoft spent $240 million two years ago to acquire a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook.”
That gives you some idea of what this kind of information is worth!

In addition, there is much discussion that there are deals pending with both Microsoft and Google with regards to Facebook. Microsoft is already ‘closer’ to facebook as mentioned above, but whether they will be able to keep ‘the big G’ out remains to be seen.

What does all of this mean for you?

For those looking to increase exposure for themselves and their business, this is huge! Not only does it mean that being ‘find-able’ online is no longer reserved for those with the skill (or deep enough pockets) to work the “SEO game”, but it also means that ‘what you tweet’ will have the potential to be seen by more people. Although twitter has always been ‘open’ to view from anyone (unless your tweets are protected), I believe that more people may use this search that would have previously.

As an avid twitter user, I often search there before going to a google search when I am looking to choose a product or service provider. This simply hasn’t occurred to those who aren’t active twitter users perhaps, but now maybe it will.

This of course increases the value of tweets, so the spammers and automation techniques will likely increase as well. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

For those who already express concern over others reading their posts, I will continue to say not to post what you don’t what others to read! You can’t expect to have a megaphone to shout to the world and expect certain people not to listen, and when you “avoid the bad, you also miss the good”.

For More info check out these posts:

Mashable

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