Save This Link dot Net

The search engine wars took a dramatic turn yesterday, with Google and Microsoft both announcing real-time search deals with Twitter. Additionally, Microsoft struck a deal with Facebook to index status updates on its Bing search engine, and Google introduced Social Search, which integrates your friends' social networking information directly into search results.

Twitter may have finally found a way to monetize the billions of "tweets" its users send, thanks to potential agreements under which the social networking site would license Google and Microsoft to integrate those tweets in their search engines.

Microsoft has struck non-exclusive search deals with Facebook and Twitter to integrate real-time status updates and tweets into Bing's search results. Microsoft online services division president Qi Lu and Yusuf Mehdi, SVP of the Microsoft's online audience business, announced the partnerships at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday morning.

Microsoft's Bing search engine, after incremental gains in U.S. search engine market share throughout the summer, experienced a slight dip, according to a small number of research firms. Despite that one-month fall in its numbers, Bing has positioned itself for long-term competition with archrival Google, thanks in part to Microsoft’s search partnership with Yahoo.