In December of 09’, Google implemented real time results into their website. This can benefit the user because if you happen to be searching for a hot topic – you will usually see real time results streaming on the results pages at Google.com.

However, Google is just mixing in real time results sometimes, and there are a slew of real time search engines , such as Sency, which are completely focused on real time results. So where will users go for real time searches?

One take-away from the headaches that came with Google Buzz is that while Google is trying to get users to interact insider Gmail – people have gotten use to using Gmail for email. People like interacting on Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace because that is where they have always interacted socially. Gmail, has been used for private communication – so thus far – people haven’t been as excited about interacting in a different way through Gmail.

Often, internet users get comfortable and use to a website for a given task – and those habits and built in branding are hard to change. Imagine if CNN.com started focusing on just social media news – I’ll bet a lot of people would be confused and and many people would still go to Soshable for their social media news. So, it is important to focus on what you are good at.

The real time web I believe will have a similar path. Google is far and away the #1 traditional search engine. That is where users will always migrate to for traditional searches. However, the real time web offers a different type of search – with different types of results. And, if you mix in real time results with traditional web results, it may end up confusing the user and it also may end up making it more difficult for the user to get the info they are actually looking for.

If you want to find out what people are saying right now about any given subject– a real time search is the way to go. If you want to find out what the hottest links are right now about a given keyword – a real time search is also the way to go. There are several engines focusing on bringing this real time information to you. And, you don’t have to be a member of any social network to perform a search on the real time web. Traditional engines, that try to mix in real time results – won’t be able to “know” for sure whether a searcher wants real time info or traditional info. It’s the user that knows what they want – and real time search is so unique, that for now at least, the real time searches are best performed on a site entirely focused on the real time.

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Read more about Real Time Search on this blog.

6 months ago, Twitter changed its homepage so that there was a greater focus on their search engine. At any time, anyone can go to Twitter and search through all of the updates from Twitter users. So, while initially your Tweets were scene by your Twitter followers, now people that don’t follow you and even people not using Twitter can view your Tweets when they utilize the Twitter search engine. Twitter’s search results are also being syndicated to several web properties. In December of 09, Google implemented Twitter results onto the first page of their results pages. For select keywords, you’ll notice the Latest Results box scrolling which is powered by Twitter results along with other real time results. In addition to Google, Bing has announced a plan to bake in Twitter results into their search listings. While Bing and Twitter are the most widely used websites to implement Twitter updates – a slew of real time search engines have launched in an effort to bring the real time web to internet users. Many of these real time search engines, such as Sency, use Twitter updates as the primary source of their results. Furthermore, many content sites have utilized tools and widgets to implement real time results onto their web properties. For instance, if you are on your favorite Yankees blog – you may see what people are saying right now about the Yankees scrolling down the left or right hand side of the webpage. With Twitter offering its API of Tweets for free to small web publishers and entrepreneurs – we can expect to continue to see Twitter results syndicated across the web. One great thing about real time results is that they are fresh – a search today will reveal different results than a search next week. So, web publishers will benefit from implementing real time content as it will keep their sites current and make their sites stickier. As more and more marketers realize the depth of this syndication, spam on Twitter is expected to increase. Twitter will block an account from its syndication, and when this happen, while your posts will go to your followers – they won’t go to Twitter.com and sites using the Twitter API. Furthermore, filtering technologies which Google seems to have implemented will try to prevent non-relevant Tweets from non-quality Twitter users from showing up. However, it seems the case that a majority of Tweets done today are syndicated to additional sources. If you do a search at Twitter for your user name, and you see your results showing up – that is a good indication that your updates are being syndicated across the web. In closing, when you send out that Tweet today about what you are up too – don’t assume only your Twitter followers will see it. Because major search engines such as Google and Bing may display your results – and also – your favorite blog may end up displaying them as well. * * * Read more about Twitter on this, one of many Social Media Blogs.