Yandex launches instant Twitter search

Yandex launches instant Twitter search

This article also appeared on SearchCowboys.

On February 21st. Yandex announced their agreement with Twitter, according to which the Russian search engine receives all public data from Twitter in real time. As a result, Yandex users can now search through Twitter and find the newest tweets within seconds. 

According to Yandex, their search results now include Twitter posts from more than 2 million users who tweet in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian or Kazakh, plus top feeds in other languages.

The new feature is already available at twitter.yandex.ru and through the blog search of Yandex. In addition to the usual search by keywords and phrases, it allows you to search by Twitter @usernames and #hashtags.

The Moscow Times say that the agreement between Yandex and Twitter is beneficial for both companies: while Yandex greatly improves its search, Twitter can raise brand awareness in Russia and attract more Russian-speaking users.

Of course, I tried looking for my own tweets using Yandex's new Twitter search, but - disappointment! - couldn't find any. To make sure that I am one of those 'more than 2 million users' I posted a few tweets in Russian, but twitter.yandex.ru still showed 0 results.

But let's look at something that actually works. Remember the recent bomb threat at Schiphol airport, and how Twitter spread the news way before the traditional media? On twitter.yandex.ru I can see that the first message in Russian was tweeted at 14:45 and then followed by numerous news posts.

A few days ago Yandex launched its new people finder feature, which was the first step towards including the data from social networks in the search results.  Now there is a Twitter search. So what's next?

• Door Tamara Yadvichuk
• Gepost op 24 Feb, 2012