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Yahoo To Partner On Real-Time Search Development?

Posted on: Wednesday, 4 November 2009, 13:11 CST

Unnamed sources said on Tuesday that Yahoo is running tests with several real-time search partners in an effort to match its rivals in providing up-to-the-minute Internet search results, Reuters reported.

OneRiot, whose data will be available initially to about 10 percent of Yahoo's users, is among the companies providing real-time results to Yahoo on a trial basis, according to a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak about the deal.

OneRiot has not publicly commented on the matter.

However, it is also rumored that Yahoo is conducting real-time search tests with other companies as well, according to a second source.

Lead by the popularity of microblogging service Twitter, which lets users broadcast 140-character messages, Real-time search is emerging as a popular way to find information on the Internet.

A Web surfer can often get information faster by searching streams of Twitter messages rather than through many standard Web pages retrieved through traditional Internet searches.

Google and Microsoft announced back-to-back last month to make Twitter messages retrievable by their search engines.

Yahoo is testing a new "search shortcut" that would include real-time results at the top of search results pages, according to the search company’s official blog.

The company said the shortcut would only appear on certain queries that will be determined by Yahoo, as it was a test designed to discover if showing such content is useful to people.

Yahoo Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh said last month that Yahoo signed a separate 10-year search deal with Microsoft in July, which is expected to close next year. Therefore, any data Microsoft's search engine has access to also would be accessible to Yahoo, under the terms of that deal.

Yahoo had also been testing the limited inclusion of Twitter messages within search results to certain users.

The first source familiar with the matter said Yahoo's deal with OneRiot -– which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal -- does not include any revenue sharing elements.

The Boulder, Colorado-based One Riot, which has raised $27 million in funding to date, collects real-time Internet information from various sources, including Twitter, Digg and its own network of 3 million users that use the company's software.

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On the Net:

• Yahoo
• OneRiot

Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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