Confirming what had already been reported earlier, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo in the Q4 Earnings Call today, formalized that his company has signed a deal with Google, wherein real-tweets would make a comeback on Google’s search results, after being discontinued in 2011.
This however shouldn’t be a surprise, as rumours about the deal had already surfaced and it was just a matter of formal announcement. This is the second time that Google will be using Twitter’s Firehose data collection platform, after earlier signing a similar deal in 2009, which later got terminated in 2011.
Though Costolo did not reveal much details regarding the financial involved in the deal, but CFO Anthony Noto did note that the proceeds of it are “considered” as part of the company’s guidance.
As per the latest deal, in the first half of this year, tweets will start to be visible in Google’s search results as soon as they’re posted. This will be possible through Twitter’s ‘firehose‘ user data platform, which Google get access to. Twitter already has a similar deal in place with Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing.
As for Twitter, this presents an opportunity to draw in more attention to its service as user growth has started to slow down. In a series of related deals, Twitter this week announced deals to show advertising in Flipboard Inc.’s mobile application and with Yahoo Japan Corp.
Moreover, as repeatedly mentioned by Dick Costolo in his earnings call today, the deal will help bringing in “logged out” (either literally logged out or not on Twitter) users to Twitter. Those who see a tweet on Google’s Search results, will be redirected to a “logged out” page, wherein they’ll not only see a sign up option, they’ also witness advertisements.
Apart from confirming the Google-Firehose deal, Twitter also reported better than expected Q4 earning results, even though user growth continues to slow. The micro-blogging site now has 288 million monthly active users, up 20 percent on a year ago but only 4 million on Q4.
