YaToo: Y! Going Real Time

Apparently Twitter is all search-dealt out. After deals to bring real-time info to Bing (now) and Google (later), Twitter was not the last of the big three’s choice for real-time search. (But does it matter if Yahoo’s deal with Bing goes through?)

Instead, Yahoo, almost a week behind the others, plans to go real time with OneRiot, according to TechCrunch’s sources.

I know what you’re thinking. Who? Good question. OneRiot tracks trends on the real-time web. You can search several social sites’ updates from OneRiot, or you can use their toolbar to add real-time content to any web search. A search on one of their listed trending topics brought up seven news articles, all of which were listed as first shared on Twitter. They have the ten most recent stories on their main page—and when I checked, 90% were from Twitter. Hooray for catching that other 10%, Yahoo.

Danny Sullivan (or Someone purporting to be Danny Sullivan (thanks for the correction, Danny!) commented on the TechCrunch article, calling the possible deal “lame.” He points out that Twitter APIs (and several other real-time startups) are free, and Yahoo should have gotten in on that action while it could.

What do you think? Will Yahoo deal with OneRiot, or will they jump on the Twitter bandwagon with free APIs?