Twitter has just confirmed today that it has signed a Firehose deal with Google, which will bring Twitter news to non-Twitter/logged out users. For the benefit of both the companies, this deal will make Twitter's feeds directly accessible to Google, meaning that Google can now display tweets in its Search Results pages in real-time.
Google had a pretty similar deal with Twitter years ago, but that was dropped in 2011. Google previously had to crawl Twitter for new information - pretty much like it crawls every other website.
However, the new deal once again gives Google immediate access to Twitter's live data stream, which means that the slow crawling process can be done away with, and tweets can be made visible in SERPs in real-time.
The changes will incrementally start taking place within the next few months.
Back in 2009, Google was able to index tweets automatically. But that deal sort of fell away as the then CEO wanted to have control over the network's content. Now though, things have changed. Twitter is very focused now on bringing more traffic to its content and possibly monetizing that to greater effect. So this new Google deal will give Twitter just what it needs - more eyeballs for its content. According to CEO Dick Costolo;
“We've got the opportunity now to drive and aggregate eyeballs to logged-out experiences that we plan to deliver on the front page of Twitter,” he continued, “and that’s why it makes a lot more sense now.”
This can also be seen as an expansion strategy. Twitter is obviously set on targeting logged-out or non-Twitter users with this update. This would serve to bring new users over to the network, and is exactly the type of attitude the company needs right now as it’s growth in terms of both daily active users and stock price has fallen flat as of late.
So what does Google stand to gain in all this?
This deal is being described as a win-win for both companies. In addition to potentially accelerating Twitter’s growth, it’s also good for Google because the ability to index real-time tweets is valuable for searchers.
Of course, this deal also stands to greatly benefit businesses and publishers as well, as their search engine visibility and social media audience will be amplified. Hence, a new arena for Bloggers and content markets to explore (:
