Twitter, who recently ended its contract with Google to have a stream of tweets displayed alongside search results, is now trying to woo Microsoft in a similar contract.
Twitter had signed contracts with both Google and Microsoft back in 2009, but now Twitter is asking Microsoft to pay an increased licensing fee for using real-time updates on its search results. Twitter is asking Microsoft to fork over $30 million dollars.
Now that Google’s contract has ended, Microsoft, who already has a deal with Twitter to show tweet data in search results, has the chance to dominate in the real-time search arena.
This deal with Twitter comes with a heavy price though. Twitter wants increased control over Bing’s user interface. Twitter also wants control on how information is presented within the search results. In fact, most importantly for both companies, how the advertisement revenue will be split is also up in the air.
“Several sources said that the pair is still far apart on a number of issues, including the price and term of the data licensing, the way the tweets and advertising linked to it will be presented on Bing, the cut of that advertising and even how much traffic Bing pushes back to Twitter,” Liz Gannes stated over at All Things Digital.
Microsoft and Twitter still have six more months to come up with a new deal. It would be interesting to see if Microsoft signs this contract with Twitter and integrates real-time search with its new Tulalip social search service that was accidentally revealed a few days ago.
