Real-Time Google Searches Yield Facebook Updates, Twitter Tweets

by Clint Boulton

Google surfaces tweets and Facebook status updates on the trade of Detroit Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson to the Yankees.

eWEEK did a regular search on “President Obama.” When we initially saw no real-time results, we clicked on the search options button atop the results page, then clicked latest in the left-hand rail. This is what we saw. News articles, press releases and tweets appearing right before our eyes. In fact, results streamed in so fast, we almost had to pause the stream to take a screenshot. This technology really works.

What does this say about people when the news stream about golfer Tiger Woods pipes in faster than that of the U.S. President? It says salacious affairs sell. eWEEK actually had to pause the real-time news flow to take a decent screenshot here.

We then wanted to see a full page of real-time updates on Woods. So we clicked on search options, then clicked Updates in the left-hand rail. This is what we saw.

We then used Google Trends to find hot topics. What’s so hot about UPS? Our guess is it’s the holiday season. People are racing online to check package status updates. Here is where Google’s real-time search had trouble: disambiguating the term for the company UPS from the word “ups,” as in “ups and downs.”

With the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen this week, the capital of Denmark was the top hot trend on Google. Here are the real-time results.

In something out of The Twilight Zone, mysterious blue spiral lights appeared over Norway. What are they, where do they come from, people are tweeting. Gizmodo has more.

Public Option is the hot, controversial topic in healthcare reform. People are tweeting and publishing stories on it en masse.

Much ado about Champion League soccer on Google. Liverpool lost to Fiorentina 2-1.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions is getting a lot of play in the U.S. as the ailing economy struggles to recover.