Twitter, Google to make tweets more searchable

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter has struck a deal with Google to make its 140-character updates more searchable online.

In the first half of this year, tweets will start to be visible in Google’s search results as soon as they are posted, thanks to a deal giving the Web company access to Twitter’s fire hose — the stream of data generated by the microblogging service’s 284 million users, industry insiders said.

Google previously had to trawl Twitter’s site for the information, which will now come automatically from the latter.

The agreement underscores the progress that Twitter chief executive officer Dick Costolo is making to get tweets seen by more non-users and generating more advertising revenue from a larger audience.

Twitter, which also provides data to Microsoft’s Bing search service and Yahoo!, is aiming to draw more people to its site as user growth slows.

Twitter this week announced deals to show advertising in Flipboard’s mobile application and with Yahoo Japan.

Engineers from Twitter and Google are already working on the arrangement, said the people.

The two companies had a similar deal worked out six years ago, but it ended in 2011.

Mr Ali Rowghani, Twitter’s former chief operating officer, had been against renewing the agreement to keep more control over Twitter’s content and it lapsed, the people said.

There is no advertising revenue involved in the deal between Twitter and Google, suggesting the former will receive data-licensing revenue, which was US$41 million (S$55.2 million) in the third quarter, an increase from US$16 million a year earlier.

Mr Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial officer, said at the company’s analyst meeting last November that the company had been working to make tweets easier to find through search engines and that negotiating with search providers could be a unique opportunity to distribute tweets to more people.

BLOOMBERG