« Google Friend Connect Adds Support for 47 More Languages | Main | Study Shows Old Media Beat Bloggers To News »
July 14, 2009
BingTweets Mashes Up Trending Tweets with Search Results (UPDATE)
UPDATE: BingTweets was showing old trending topics earlier, but as has been noted in the comments, that has been fixed and now is current.
Ever noticed a trending topic on Twitter and then headed to a search engine to learn more? A new site from the Bing team makes that process even easier.
BingTweets is a new site that pulls in trending topics on Twitter and offers Bing search results right on the same page. BingTweets is not found at Bing.com but rather has its own standalone site at BingTweets.com.
When you click on one of the topics, search results are automatically and immediately triggered with no extra clicks.
However, there's one issue and it's a biggie: The topics seem to be delayed. Under the popular right now tab, Wimbledon was trending despite the finals being almost 10 days ago. Wimbledon is no longer trending on Twitter.
BingTweets trending topics July 14, 2009
Twitter trending topics July 14, 2009
Overall, though the UI is nice.
Another thing I would adjust is the Twitter stream down the left side. When I selected "Andy Murray," the Tweet stream brought up Tweets that had the word murray but not andy. If I'm interested in Tweets about Andy Murray, then Tweets about Bill Murray are largely irrelevant.
What do you think about BingTweets? Give us your first impressions in the comments below.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on July 14, 2009 6:00 PM
Comments
Matthew DiPietro July 14, 2009 6:55 PM
And we're back. Trending topics are now current. Sorry foe delay on that. And thanks for the QA!
Matthew DiPietro July 14, 2009 7:05 PM
Yep, topics are nice and current now.
Joe Kepley July 14, 2009 9:00 PM
I waited until today to give Bingtweets a first trial and I found it running fast, smooth and bug free. This mashup between Microsoft and Twitter isn't going to dethrone Google's lock on search any time soon. But it is going to eat into their marketshare by as much as 10% to 15% by years' end.
Google will now have to take action to respond with a better product, but how? Microsoft, with a helpful boost from Federated Media, tapped into the Twittersphere "firstest with the mostest" as the wise old general was fond of saying. And, so this battle was won decisively by Microsoft.
Tom Nocera July 25, 2009 8:31 PM
Thanks Nathania. Thanks for the post! You're right on top of it. The site is definitely still in beta. We launched just a few hours ago and the twitterverse crashed us due to an amazing surge in traffic. The site's back up now, but while it gets up to speed it's pulling some slightly old data into the Twitter trends. We should be at full speed with up-to-the-minute trends shortly as we get more servers online.