Good news for tweeters: Google may be testing a microblog search tool
Could Google be testing a microblog search application?
That's the rumor swirling around the blogosphere today, days after the blog unearthed in the FAQ section of a company blog. According to GOS, "Google [is] preparing to launch a service that indexes and ranks content from microblogging services like Twitter."
If true, the move could revolutionize the way we tweet. As Randall Stross and others have , Twitter's search function is inherently limited 鈥� it allows users to sift through old posts, but every item is ordered chronologically, and finding older information can be a hassle.
"[If] one wants to search Twitter for tweets about a topic... Twitter鈥檚 data fill an ocean in which it鈥檚 hard to find specific fish," Stross wrote in Sunday's New York Times.
Reporters have long wondered if Google was preparing a real-time search function. Google crawls and indexes web pages regularly 鈥� including posts on Twitter. But the algorithm does not analyze and process information in real time.
According to CNET's Tom Kraznit, Google did not confirm or deny the existence of a microblog search initiative.
"At Google we strive to connect people to all the world's information, and this includes information that's frequently updated such as news sites, blogs and real-time sources," the . "While we don't have anything to announce today, real-time information is important, and we're looking at different ways to use this information to make Google more useful to our users."