Yahoo! 'signs' real time search deal with OneRiot
Yahoo! is understood to have signed a search deal with real-time search engine OneRiot
Yahoo! is understood to have signed a search deal with real-time search engine OneRiot, in a bid not to be left behind the likes of Google and Microsoft, which signed similar deals last week with Twitter.
According to senior search executives and industry blog, TechCrunch, a deal has been signed which will see Yahoo! integrate OneRiot’s service into its search engine product.
Last week, both Google and Microsoft signed deals with Twitter to allow them to integrate tweets into their search engines in a bid to make their respective results more “real-time”.
Microsoft’s Bing also signed a deal with Facebook to incorporate people’s public status updates into its product. However, Google has yet to launch anything off the back of the deal while Microsoft has launched a separate Bing-Twitter site (www.bing.com/twitter ) in beta as a testing ground for how to best integrate tweets.
Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, revealed last week that the data stream of its public status updates would be ready for Bing to use “within the next couple of months” and refused to comment on the chances of a similar highly expected deal with Google.
Yahoo!, has so far remained quiet about how it plans to make its search results more ‘real-time’. However an announcement confirming the arrangement with OneRiot is expected next week.
Both OneRiot and Yahoo! declined to comment. Yahoo! issued the following public statement: “We can’t comment on rumour or speculation.
Real-time search is important and we’re currently conducting several tests designed to discover if showing such content is useful to people using Yahoo! Search.
Yahoo! is focused on creating the most innovative, easy-to-use and valuable search experience for people, and after these tests we will carefully evaluate whether we should integrate such results for everyone using Yahoo! Search.”
TechCrunch has speculated that Yahoo! will not integrate OneRiot’s functionality directly into its search engine, but will include it on its homepage as an add-on delivering real-time results alongside its usual search results.
OneRiot is a privately owned company, which offers users a real-time search engine, helping people find the news, blogs and videos that people are buzzing about.
It works by crawling the updates from across Twitter, Digg, FriendFeed and its own 300 million person strong consumer panel, who vote on what subjects are “hot” online at that point.
It then ranks the importance of these updates using several factors such as: freshness, authority of the person posting the information, authority of the webpage and its acceleration level – i.e. how many times the information is being shared or linked to.
The company is US based and has to date raised $27m in venture capital.
However, Yahoo!’search arrangements could be set to change if it receives regulatory approval for its deal with Microsoft.
In July, Yahoo! and Microsoft officially announced a search deal that will see Microsoft technology power Yahoo!’s search for the next 10 years.
Last week Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin voiced his disappointment that Yahoo! would effectively be exiting search if this deal goes ahead, during a surprise appearance at the Web 2.0 conference.
Mr Brin said it was a “shame” that Yahoo! was planning to exit the search area as it had been doing some interesting thing in the space.
“I think Yahoo! had a number of innovations there, and I wish they would continue to innovate in search,” he told delegates.
- Emma Barnett
© Telegraph.co.uk
