What do you get when you combine 600 million searchers with 50 million daily tweets? A new Yahoo-Twitter tie-up. While consumer privacy organizations continue bashing Google about its Google Buzz service, Yahoo and Twitter are partnering on a more benign social-networking play — content sharing.
Yahoo on Wednesday announced the partnership with the popular micro-blogging service that will see real-time Twitter feeds integrated across the Yahoo network. The deal is part of Yahoo’s drive to deliver personally relevant information from various online sources and largely mimics the efforts of Google and Bing.
A Warning for Twitter
Brad Shimmin, a social-media analyst at Current Analysis, said the Yahoo deal gives consumers yet another entry point to Twitter and may lead to the democratization of micro-blogging services. Although Twitter is ubiquitous, he said, it could blend into the background as a service for other platforms.
“What matters is not that your micro-blogging is running on Twitter,” Shimmin said. “What matters is that wherever you call home, you are communicating using the methodology of micro-blogging. Twitter could become less and less relevant. What counts most is the communication rather than the brand.”
While the search-engine deals may broaden Twitter’s exposure and lead to short-term growth, Shimmin noted, at the same time it lessens Twitter’s grip on its user base. Google Wave-type services could provide a similar capability and reach the same number of people. If that happens, is Twitter that important?
Betting Against Buzz
Time may answer Shimmin’s question. Meanwhile, Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Yahoo’s consumer-products group, took the opportunity to offer a marketing message around the deal in Twitter style (that is, 140 characters or less). Lamkin wrote: “We’re turning the key to the online social universe — you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo.”
Marketing hyperbole aside, the nuts and bolts of the…