Ian Paul, PCWorld

Yahoo on Wednesday announced it would be providing integrated Twitter results into its search engine, and that Yahoo users will start seeing this functionality immediately. The company also laid out a brief roadmap for further Twitter integration across the company’s network of Web sites.

The recent addition of Twitter is part of Yahoo’s open strategy, which the company announced in 2008. Yahoo hopes it will help make the new Yahoo homepage and Yahoo Mail an integral part of users’ daily Internet activity.

Here’s a quick breakdown of Yahoo’s plans for Twitter integration:

Tweets in search

The most obvious result of this deal will be the integration of tweets into your Yahoo search results. You will start to see this new functionality today as a tab at the top of your search results.


Yahoo has taken a slightly different approach with Twitter results than Google and Bing. Yahoo only displays two tweets at a time, but also displays two YouTube video links that have been extracted from relevant tweets.

When I did a search for Barack Obama, for example, I saw two Twitter updates and two video links. Clicking on the video links took me to full screen YouTube videos. If I wanted to see more tweets, there was also a ‘more Barack Obama from Twitter’ link that took me directly to Twitter’s own search results page.

Yahoo’s use of Twitter is not yet comprehensive, so there are many topical issues, such as the Winter Olympics, that at the time of this writing did not trigger Twitter results in Yahoo.

Yahoo’s search sidebar, an existing feature that lets you drill down to results by source, already offers a way to search for Twitter results. To do so, you just include the word ‘Twitter’ into your search query. Yahoo will then show you a mix of Twitter accounts and older status updates related to your search terms. You won’t see the same real-time updates that the new approach offers.

By comparison, Google constantly updates relevant tweets within your search results. Bing, meanwhile, places very few links to Twitter within its search results, but offers a dedicated Twitter page at Bing.com/twitter.

Personal Twitter Feeds

Yahoo will also be incorporating a mini-Twitter client into its sites, including the Yahoo Homepage, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Sports, and so on. The company wasn’t exactly clear on how this will work, but from the sound of it, your Twitter feed will stay with you as you visit select Yahoo sites whenever you are logged in to your Yahoo account.

You will also be able to send out tweets from these Yahoo pages, and there will be mechanisms to help you share Yahoo content with your Twitter followers. Yahoo-themed tweets will include ways to comment on particular Web pages, such as rating a movie or tweeting about your Fantasy Sports teams.

Real-time Public Updates

Another part of Twitter integration will be the inclusion of real-time public Twitter updates as part of other Yahoo sites, such as News, Finance, and Sports. It’s not entirely clear, however, if that means you’ll automatically see, for example, New York Yankees-themed tweets on Yahoo Sports pages or whether relevant tweets will only appear when you search within Yahoo’s various domains.

Now that all three search engines have integrated Twitter results, what do you think? Do you find Twitter results helpful or do they just add more noise to your searches?

Connect with Ian on Twitter (@ianpaul) or on Google Buzz.

Hi5, the third largest social networking site in the world,  has recently laid off almost 15 percent of its employees, a move to cut expenses in this gloomy economic condition where industries from all sectors including the Internet field have been experiencing dramatic financial slow down.

According to a high ranking official of the company, this move is an attempt to cut expenses in order to survive in this global economic crisis which had caused even the proud Wall Street to stumble upon its feet.

According to the latest figure, the company has also experienced low rates of unique visitors which had also forced some major sponsors to pull out their commercials and other kinds of advertisement posted in the webpage.

The reason for the financial throes experienced by most social network sites is the low advertising revenue which is just a domino-effect of a weak economic condition.  Since most companies from all sectors are tightening their belt, advertising costs have been greatly reduced to reduce burn rates and limit expenses.

In a statement released by the company’s vice-president in marketing department Mike Trigg, “the move is a pragmatic decision in order to survive in this ever-changing environment, and in order for a business to grow, restructuring should be done in the company.”

Meanwhile a source who asked for anonymity had said that most of the people who had been laid off came from HR and Design department.

According to a recent survey, Hi5 ranks third from the most popular social network sites.  The top placer is Facebook and then closely followed by MySpace, both of which have been considered as the most popular community sites in North America.

Internet company Yahoo said on Sunday that it was considering a “number of value maximising strategic alternatives” and would evaluate any proposal made by Microsoft Corp..Yahoo recently rebuffed a $33 a share takeover offer from Microsoft. Microsoft said earlier on Sunday it has proposed an alternative deal to Yahoo rather than a full acquisition.

In a statement, Yahoo said it had confirmed with Microsoft that it was not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of the company, but it was considering alternatives and remained open to pursuing any deal in the best interest of stockholders.

The board “will evaluate each of our alternatives, including any Microsoft proposal, consistent with its fiduciary duties, with a focus on maximizing stockholder value,” it said.

Yahoo Inc. has not yet decided whether to accept a $44.6 billion bid from Microsoft Corp., CEO Jerry Yang told employees in an e-mail Wednesday.

Sunnyvale-based Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) is “evaluating a wide range of potential strategic alternatives in what is a complex and evolving landscape,” Yang added, and said the board has hired advisers to help evaluate options.

Yang said in this e-mail that the offer “highlights the tremendous strength of the Yahoo brand and assets.”

Search giant Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) said in a blog posting that the bid by Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) raises “troubling questions.”

“Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?” Chief Legal Officer David Drummond asked in the post.

Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said the combination “of Microsoft and Yahoo will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising. The alternative scenarios only lead to less competition on the Internet.”

Microsoft made its cash-and-stock offer for Yahoo on Jan. 31, and the move was widely seen as an effort by Microsoft to catch up to Google in the Web advertising market