Microsoft announced that Bing is now pulling in tweets from Twitter in real-time, which resembles Google’s real-time search feature. This integration isn’t exactly new either. Bing started including tweets from certain people in search engines last summer.
Bing’s Lawrence Kim describes its new “social search” feature by saying:
Bing now pulls in social content generated on Twitter to surface the most relevant updates within seconds of a breaking news event. From people on the ground tweeting about what’s happening around them to users sharing interesting news links while browsing at home, the Twitterati can be significantly faster than traditional media outlets in picking up information on breaking events. Further, the Twitterati also picks up information that the traditional media outlets often ignore – such as the latest viral video being shared online.
At Bing, we analyze what topics are generating the most interest on Twitter to bring you the latest and most interesting content. So if you wanted to find out more information on the just-announced Kin phone from Microsoft, you’ll be able to discover it on Bing as the announcement was being made and journalists started tweeting about the product.
Whether or not Bing will integrate Twitter’s new promoted tweets in its social feature is unknown at this time.
Currently, this new feature is being tested with a small amount of Bing users and queries, but the company says it will be available in the U.S. soon.