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PC World - This must be a joke: A Novell corporate blog item that chastises the City of Los Angeles for recently selecting Google Apps to replace Novell's GroupWise e-mail and calendaring software. Tags: blog, software

Deals between Microsoft's Bing and social-networking giants Twitter and Facebook are the type of non-traditional approach Microsoft needs as it seeks to chip away at Google's big lead in the search market, according to an analyst. "They've been at this for four or five years, and it's good to see them accelerating and adding things that Google doesn't have," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft.

Integrating Social Networking

The deals will add Twitter tweets and Facebook updates into Bing's search results. A Bing blog posting verified the arrangement with Twitter but didn't provide details.

The posting said Microsoft is offering a U.S. beta of Bing Twitter search. The beta allows users to search Twitter feeds on any topic and provides choices to display the results.

Tweets can be viewed as they are posted, full pages of tweets can be displayed, or tweets can be ranked by the number of followers the author has. Entries identical to earlier tweets are ranked lower, according to the blog.

The Facebook deal was announced at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. A company statement said, "Today we announced that we are working with Microsoft to make status updates that Facebook users choose to make public to 'everyone' on Facebook also available in real time through Bing search. With this partnership between Facebook and Bing, search becomes more relevant and social than ever, giving people the ability to discover what's happening in the world right now. This new functionality will be available early next year."

Real-Time Reaction

Rosoff said the concept of integrating social networking into search will help Bing provide more timely information. "Twitter feeds in particular offer a different type of information than is usually available through search engines," he said. "It provides up-to-the-minute sentiment on and information about particular topics. News can... Tags: blog, microsoft

Los Angeles-based Sodahead, the online question and answer site backed by Mission Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and the Tech Coast Angels, said Monday that it has tied together in a strategic partnership with Technorati. According to the firm, the deal will allow its members to access Technorati content, embedded within its online community, plus feature SodaHead's polls on Technorati posts. Financial details of the partnership were ot disclosed. Technorati is an online site which provides a way to search and browse blog posts. SodaHead operates a web site which combines a way for users to ask and answer questions about different topics with social networking and community features. READ MORE>> Tags: blog