Forget Indexing Tweets: Google Is Pulling Them Directly from the API

The author uses the terms API and "indexing technology" imprecisely here. I think what he really means is that they are getting data from Twitter via a push protocol rather than a polling protocol.

Note that while Twitter has a site-specific protocol (the firehouse), any site that wants to enable real time searching and alerts can also just implement PubSubHubbub, which can notify any interested subscriber about updates in near real time.

As far as I know, Google uses PubSubHubbub to update Google Reader feeds in real time - I'm not sure if this integrates into realtime search results as of now.

> No standard indexing technology could work that quickly. Google has tied their search results directly into the Twitter API

What exactly is standard index indexing technology? Just because the search engine built into your blog software can't do it, doesn't mean it's not doable.

If you have an opinion and want to share, go ahead, but don't sell your assumptions as fact.

Which API?

Well obviously they don't know because they're just guessing what Google is doing to begin with.

Grr... given that I'm going to using the twitter API, something with details would have been nice...

This wasn't common knowledge? Google has been returning results from Twitter and forums within seconds of the content being posted for a long time now. Their "realtime" search is exactly this. If Twitter lets people buy access to the "firehouse" or what not, it stands to reason that Google would be the first in line for such access.