Now you can use Twitter in Search

Twitter has changed the look of its public homepage , now it look more like a search engine. And last week we found out that Twitter’s new search guru is Doug Cook, who was formerly of Yahoo and inktomi



This means that Twitter is now effectively competing in search with not only the major players but all the third parties that are using the site’s API as the backbone of their own engines

Twitter Has Plans to Launch Ranking Algorithm

Twitter will try to become a Google competitor in real time search by announcing plans to build a search ranking algorithm. The algorithm will assign a “reputation” score to certain tweets and use this to deliver the most relevant results to searches.
Currently, search.twitter.com simply performs a text match and returns all posts that mention the keyword you’ve searched for. The down side of this is that for popular terms, many times you will just see re-tweets and low value content from hundreds or thousands of users. By assigning a ranking system to these results, you’ll be able to see the most meaningful results first.
The changes were announced by Santosh Jayaram, who recently joined Twitter after managing search quality operations at Google. Jayaram said that not only will Twitter launch a ranking algorithm; they will also begin scanning the links included within tweets and start indexing this content.
This could see Twitter become a serious competitor to Google in the field of real time search. By indexing external links it will help to make twitter a more complete index about what’s happening in real time across the web.
For more info, check out the post on news.com.

Travel companies are going for Twitter.

Hotels, airlines, airports and other travel companies are joining the Twitter community, to pitch services, update travel conditions and respond directly to the individual needs of customers. They're finding the mobile nature of the technology is ideal for talking to travelers. Read More..