The deal will allow Bing to integrate Twitter and Facebook status updates in the search engine results. Microsoft's VP Yusurf Mehdi stated Microsoft will have access to all the public Twitter information in real time and all the public-available data from Facebook which will make this possible.
For example, Mehdi demonstrated the new "Bing Wave 2.0" product in a basic search in Bing for the name of a celebrity. During the product demo, Bing pulled up the most popular, relevant and useful tweets on the subject. The results displayed the most recent tweets about the specific celebrity, the most re-tweeted tweets and even the full URL of the shortened links contained in the tweet.
According to Mehdi's demonstration, it is now possible to view entire Twitter feeds from inside Bing - therefore there is no need to go back and forth from search engine to Twitter. Wait a minute... isn't Twitter becoming a search engine itself?
No companies involved in the deal would comment on terms of the agreement, but the New York Times reported Microsoft paid Twitter for the right to integrate tweets into Bing. Also, Microsoft confirmed it's deal with Twitter is non-exclusive - meaning Google, or any other search engine, can jump on the "Deals with Twitter" band wagon and begin integrating tweets in it's Web site as well.
Taking that into consideration, was it a smart choice for Microsoft to PAY Twitter for permission to integrate tweets into Bing? Even if any search company can strike the same deal? Will people want to use Bing, or will they be "status-update" overloaded?
Only time will tell if this deal was smart for Microsoft - for their sake, let's hope so!
Check out the Bing/Twitter development at www.bing.com/twitter
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