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Twitter becomes mutual friend of Google, Microsoft
Twitter Inc. is selling the rights to mine its communications hotbed to both Internet search leader Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in dueling deals that underscore the growing importance of being able to show what's on people's minds at any given moment. The announcements made Wednesday within a three-hour span also represent the latest bit of gamesmanship between two of technology's fiercest and most powerful rivals. Microsoft seemed to have seized the upper hand in the information arms race when its top Internet executive, Qi Lu, took the stage at a technology conference in San Francisco. Lu used the platform to declare Microsoft's search engine, Bing, would become the best way outside of Twitter's own Web site to find out what people are saying in their Twitter messages, or "tweets." The messages, consisting of no more than 140 characters, can be posted from Internet-connected computers or mobile devices, enabling people to share mundane details about their lives or intriguing news and commentary from all over the world. It's real-time information that it didn't look like Google's search engine would be able to provide the kind of competitive advantage that Microsoft has been seeking while investing billions of dollars in what so far has been a fruitless effort to narrow Google's huge lead in Internet search. Refusing to be upstaged, Google revealed on its blog that its search engine has secured the tweeting rights, too. Neither Microsoft nor Google would disclose how much it is paying for the rights to index the millions of public updates distributed by Twitter each day.
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