Yahoo! and Twitter embark on a new venture

Yahoo! has signed a deal with the popular micro-blogging site Twitter which will see Yahoo! users able to access Twitter via a whole host of Yahoo! products.

It’s not unusual for search engines to partner up with social networking sites such as Twitter. Only last year Google and Microsoft’s Bing signed a deal with Twitter to start indexing their updates on their search pages.

However the Yahoo! deal will go beyond simply indexing Twitter updates. Users of Yahoo! will be able to access their Twitter accounts from the company’s homepage, and from their Yahoo! email account, bridging the gap between social networking and other technology packages more than ever before.

Bosses at Yahoo! say the new venture will enable their customers to access their social networking pages more quickly and effectively by integrating Twitter services into several areas of the Yahoo! brand. Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president, consumer products group, Yahoo! described the new partnership as “simplifying people’s lives by bringing their social worlds — and the world —- together for easy access.”

How the service will work has not yet been revealed, neither is it known how much the deal between Yahoo! and Twitter has cost.

Twitter updates are now searchable through Microsoft's Bing and will soon appear through Google

Just after the news broke that Microsoft would start indexing Twitter updates through their newly launched search engine Bing, Google also revealed that they have plans to follow suit and will also begin delivering status updates from Twitter in the near future.

The real-time Twitter search feature was announced by Microsoft at a web summit in Australia this week. The organisation said they also have plans in the pipeline to start delivering status updates from the other giant in social networking, Facebook.

Microsoft’s Bing is already displaying the Twitter updates. The service brings the user tweets related to a topic typed into a search box taking into account, the author, content, and how many times the tweet has received comments or been re-tweeted. It is not yet known when they will begin delivering the Facebook updates as well.

One of the biggest players from the world of search engines, Google who currently command an estimated 65% of the US market, confirmed that they too have come to an agreement with Twitter and their update service will swing into action in the coming weeks.

Not ones to be left out in the dark, Yahoo! are also believed to be in the process of negotiating a deal with the micro-blogging site Twitter.