Google Search Appliance now highlights Twitter posts

Embracing Twitter feeds latest effort by Google to highlight real-time communications streams

Google onThursday said its enterprise search appliance will now show relevant Twitter posts alongside internal and external search results.

"Customers have told us that placing web results next to intranet ones often allows employees to think differently about a particular topic and approach it in new ways. By integrating enterprise search with more of the information that exists in the cloud, like tweets, employees can more easily leverage the wisdom of the crowd," wrote Cyrus Mistry, a Google product manager, in a blog post. 

Tracking Twitter posts can, among other things, let companies see what others are saying about them.

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Google onThursday said its enterprise search appliance will now show relevant Twitter posts alongside internal and external search results.

"Customers have told us that placing web results next to intranet ones often allows employees to think differently about a particular topic and approach it in new ways. By integrating enterprise search with more of the information that exists in the cloud, like tweets, employees can more easily leverage the wisdom of the crowd," wrote Cyrus Mistry, a Google product manager, in a blog post. 

Tracking Twitter posts can, among other things, let companies see what others are saying about them.

This is the same Twitter, by the way, that Google CEO Eric Schmidt back in May called "a poor man’s email system" (though he later went on to praise Twitter on its widespread usage). And of course much speculation has been made on and off about Google trying to buy Twitter.

Mistry says adding the capability should only take about 15 minutes for companies to get up and running.

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Google needs to keep boosting its search appliance capabilities in light of competition from various sources, including open source search tools for enterprises.  In October, Google added a slew of features, including better integration with Microsoft SharePoint and some self-tuning capabilities. 

Earlier in the week, Google added real-time results from Twitter, blogs and other sources to its public search engine, the company’s latest competitive move vs. Microsoft Bing, which already offers such results.

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