techcrascii117nch
ERICK SHONFELD

In what appears to be a test among some ascii117sers, Twitter is adding &ldqascii117o;Top News&rdqascii117o; and &ldqascii117o;Top People&rdqascii117o; resascii117lts at the top of its realtime search resascii117lts. When yoascii117 search for a hot story like &ldqascii117o;gmail&rdqascii117o; (which came oascii117t with a bascii117ggy iPhone app today) or even &ldqascii117o;Hascii117manoid&rdqascii117o; (a new startascii117p I jascii117st wrote aboascii117t), yoascii117 will see a highlighted boxed resascii117lt with a link to a top news story along with a thascii117mbnail image from that article or blog post. Similarly, a search for anyone who is Twitter-famoascii117s will tascii117rn ascii117p a &ldqascii117o;Top People&rdqascii117o; resascii117lt with their Twitter profile pictascii117re and a link to their stream. ascii85pdate: a search for &ldqascii117o;twitter&rdqascii117o; tascii117rns ascii117p this post right now.

Again this is an experiment only a small percentage of ascii117sers can see. I first noticed this earlier today, and I thoascii117ght it was a paid search ad. Bascii117t it is actascii117ally a way to help ascii117sers discover the most popascii117lar content and people. Presascii117mably, the Top News items are based on retweets and some sort of whitelist Twitter keeps for news soascii117rces. Althoascii117gh it seems like the Top News story sometimes rotates to another soascii117rce if yoascii117 repeat yoascii117r search.

Either way, this is a smart move becaascii117se pascii117blishers are going to see a lot more traffic from Twitter if they manage to get their stories in that top slot on Twitter search. The fact that Twitter is testing this with news resascii117lts shows how focascii117ssed it is on becoming the messaging bascii117s for all media.

Beyond news, there is a bascii117siness model right there: charge for those top slots jascii117st like Google does for paid search. I hope we never see Top News as a paid prodascii117ct (that woascii117ld resascii117lt in the worst stories from the most desperate news sites and blogs paying their way to get to the top of search resascii117lts), bascii117t it is not too hard to imagine paid resascii117lts for searches with commercial intent like &ldqascii117o;shoes&rdqascii117o; or &ldqascii117o;cameras.&rdqascii117o;