12-Jan-2012 - Google Ties Social Service Closer to Search Engine

Visted 2 times

By JOHN LETZING Google Inc. said it has further tied its new social-networking service to its dominant search engine, a move that Twitter Inc. challenged as anticompetitive. Google said starting over the next few days users of its search engine will receive photos and messages posted by their contacts on its Google+ social network. It will also display Google+ profiles of people nfl headset users are interested in. "We're transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships," Google fellow Amit Singhal wrote in a blog post. But Twitter, the social messaging service, criticized the new feature, saying it will promote Google+ content and hinder the ability of users to locate information included in Twitter messages. "We're concerned that as a result of Google's changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone," Twitter said in a statement. "We think that's bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users." A Twitter spokesman declined to comment beyond the statement. A Google spokeswoman said the company wants to help users find the most relevant information from social contacts, but NFL JERSEYS "Google does not have access to fully crawl the content on some sites, so it's not possible for us to surface all that information." Twitter and Google used to have an agreement that allowed real-time tweets to appear in Google searches. The deal lapsed last year. Twitter does have such a deal with Microsoft Corp. Facebook also works closely with Microsoft, which has integrated Facebook content into its search results. Google, which has developed a number of services in recent years including social-networking, travel information and local listings, has raised some concern that it may feature those services more prominently than those offered by rivals in its popular search engine. cheap NFL jerseys In September, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt fielded questions during a Senate antitrust hearing about Google's alleged manipulation of search results to favor its own services, stating that "We've not cooked anything." Google held about 65% of the U.S. search market in November, according to comScore data. Microsoft, which powers Yahoo Inc.'s search service, controlled about 30% of the U.S. search market during that month, according to the data. Write to John Letzing at john.letzing@dowjones.com

Comments (0)Post Comment View Whole Blog