Touted as the next big thing, real-time search has received enough buzz in the past couple of weeks even to make Google take notice.
, along with a number of cleverly titled startups, the likes of , and , are trying to capitalise on the phenomenon.
Last week, Twitter let leak that it plans to tweak its search function and will soon start indexing the links included in tweets, in turn creating a real-time mini Google.
Twitter's search function will no longer will it be a stream of text-based tweets, but will include links to millions of web pages as well.
OneRiot and Tweetmeme, and Scoopler have the same idea with different execution.
Tweetmeme received positive feedback online when it launched last week. The service tracks the most retweeted messages on Twitter, monitoring the website to for upcoming trends, which it posts in a stream on its homepage.
The company recently expanded its remit, now allowing users to search links on Twitter, including images and videos.
Similarly, OneRiot crawls the links people share on Twitter, Digg and other social sharing services, then indexes the content on those pages, resulting in a real-time web mash-up.
Another service called Scoopler, which launched last month, also bills itself as a real-time search engine, crawling through a number of social networks, including Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Delicious and posting popular trends.
Taking things further is , which is past real-time search instead capturing real-time "discovery", displaying trending Twitter topics in a text-cloud image, which falls and grows right before the users very eyes.
The big guns are also setting up for a search battle of their own. Google recently released a swathe of new features on its main search page, allowing for customisable results, which can now be trimmed down to include only the most recent results or those from past 24 hours.
But the internet seems to be collectively holding its breath for the release of , a derivative-based, info-heavy search engine set to launch next week while also being billed as the 'next big thing'.
Google Squared, its answer to Wolfram Alpha, which will index and calculate information into a spreadsheet - as opposed to a traditional link-based results page, will be rolled out late May.
Not to mention Yahoo, which is holding an anticipated press event next week called 'Search chalk talk' where web developers will discuss new products, such as its Build Your Own Search Service, or BOSS.
Microsoft has yet to release its Live replacement search offering, Kumo, also tipped to be a game changer, which is due out this year.
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