The arrangement between Google and Twitter ended last July, and now in a disappointing blow, Google which still lags behind Yandex in Russia to become the search engine of choice for the majority of Russian web users.
Now, this latest agreement that the two companies have endorsed is similar to one that Twitter already has with Microsoft’s search engine Bing, which allows users of Yandex search engine to access what Twitter refers to as its “firehose” of tweets in real time and view the latest relevant tweets alongside normal web search results.
Dick Costolo, chief executive of Twitter. Image Source: (REUTERS)
“We wanted to make sure that Twitter content can be where Twitter users are already going,” Twitter’s director of business development, April Underwood, told Reuters. “Discovery through search is so important.”
At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last October, Twitter’s chief executive disclosed to the Telegraph that negotiations with Google on reviving the partnership had failed so far. “We [Twitter and Google] just can not agree on what the appropriate value exchange is. And I do not mean that in terms of dollars…There are all sorts of details that we could not come to terms with.”
Yandex is the number-one search engine in Russia, dominating 60 percent of the market to Google’s small 25 percent.
“People share news, exchange opinions, and discuss all sorts of matters in real-time all the time,” Yandex’s blog search manager Anton Pavolv said in a statement, according to Reuters. “This kind of information will help us enhance our search results.”
Moving forward, the deal empowers Yandex users to access Twitter’s full feed of public tweets and therefore display new tweets almost instantly as they happen. Yandex will also have a dedicated Twitter search engine at twitter.yandex.ru, where it will display messages posted in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Kazakh, according to TheNextWeb. This section will also showcase top tweets in languages other than those four.
Besides, the Russian search giant has taken an amazing route with tweets. You can search Yandex for hashtags and usernames, which is of note because Google specifically said it does not index the “@” symbol.
“With more than 250 million tweets a day, Twitter is a precious information source and the fastest way to find out what is happening in your world,” Underwood, said in a statement released by Yandex. “Through this partnership, Yandex and Twitter will work together to make it easier for Yandex users in Russia and elsewhere to find real-time content about the people and things they care about most.”
Twitter and Yandex did not disclose the financial details of the agreement, but it has been reported that Microsoft paid around $30 million for its deal with Twitter.