In my opinion, people typically search under these conditions:
1. Exploratory, discovery type of search
For example: Like last night as I was helping out my daughter with her science project, I really needed to look things up! This is the type of search where the results from Google, Bing, Kosmix, etc are of great help.
2. Real time search
For example: When I need to know what people are currently talking about Kanye West, or the latest LCD TV. For this, search engines focusing on Twitter feeds are perfect.
And now, we are talking about combining both of them!
I may not need to see the tweets of all internet junkies every time I search, especially not when I am searching for topics of my daughter’s science project. My needs are similar to a visit to the good old library!
I will definitely need to see the tweets of all internet junkies every time I search for which laptop or TV to buy. My needs are similar to asking around for feedback and understanding general trends.
The point, I am trying to make is, what I search for, my needs, my expected results are all different all the time – and search engines should respect that, understand that and offer me appropriate results.
While analyzing the historical trends, relevancy and popularity from tweets and incorporating them in search results might be good, displaying search results sprinkled with tweets may not be required all the time.
I think, it should be upto the users to decide and inform the search engine what they expect out of it – and the search engines should behave accordingly.
If I asked for the tweets in my results, only then give it to me – else its spam for me!
