Yahoo Taps Into Twitter

By Geoff Duncan February 24, 2010

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Yahoo and Twitter have announced a new global deal that has Yahoo tapping into the Twitter “firehose”—a real-time feed of every public tweet created by Twitter users around the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Yahoo plans to integrate Twitter’s real-time content and “social experience” across its global Web properties, exposing Twitter—and its tweets!—to the more than 600 million people who make Yahoo’s sites and services part of their online lives.

Financial terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.

“Let me try to capture the enormity of this integration in 140 characters or less: We’re turning the key to the online social universe—you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo,” said Yahoo consumer products group senior VP Bryan Lamkin, in a statement. “We’re also simplifying people’s lives by bringing their social worlds—and the world—together for easy access.”

The integration between Yahoo and Twitter means that Twitter users will be able to tap into their personal Twitter feeds within Yahoo’s diverse online sites and properties—this will include not only the Yahoo home page and Yahoo Mail, but services like Yahoo Sports and potentially Yahoo News; users will also be able to post tweets of their own and share content from Yahoo in their tweets. Finally, general interest sites like Yahoo Search, Yahoo News, and entertainment, finance, and sports sites will present real-time public Twitter updates on a variety of subjects, all updated in real time. Yahoo’s integration with search is up and running right now; other Twitter-driven features are expected to launch on Yahoo later this year.

The deal is intended to put Yahoo’s content and services more at the center of Internet users’ social Web lives; of course, having access to users’ Twitter streams and being able to look at followers, trends, and activity also means Yahoo will likely be able to take a closer look at the online lives of folks who sign into both Yahoo and Twitter…and that kind of information is a gold mine to advertisers.

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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

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