Google is upgrading its real-time search functionality from its adjunct status to a full-fledged search category that stands on its own. Google Realtime Search now has its own address that is in the process of going live. It also has introduced some new tools, including geographic filters, a "conversation view" that provides a full exchange in Twitter and updates content to Google Alerts.

Some Missing Items

While the new functionality is welcome, it is still missing some items including feeds for search results and archival search. Perhaps more importantly, the offering does not integrate well with search to give marketers and users relevant real-time social search results. Not that Google hasn’t thought about this. The search engine is putting a lot of energy into figuring out how to parse and rank a Tweet. Amit Singhal, an engineer at the company, is leading Google's efforts to incorporate new data - such as tweets - into search results in real time by tracking and ranking updates to online content. (via Technology Review).

The problem Singhal is grappling with is an issue already familiar to marketers: how to assign meaning and value to each tweet. Certainly there are a wealth of tools to help marketers establish the relevance of a certain tweeter’s reputation. Google, though, wants to be able to establish that relevance with the same authority and quality that traditional web searches have, Technology Review said.