At first glance, there were few surprises in the most recently released comScore numbers, which showed that Google had solidified its dominance in the search engine market and stabilized in-roads made by competitors (specifically Microsoft Bing). However, a closer look reveals that one of the big winners from the past few months of activity has been social media site Twitter — and they might have Google to thank for it.
Twitter’s site traffic rose nine percent from December 2009 to January 2010 — which happens to be the period when Google integrated real-time search of sites like Twitter into their results. LeeAnn Prescott at Digital Beat doesn’t think this is a coincidence. She also thinks that the numbers bode well for Twitter on the heels of the recent launch of Google Buzz.
“However, this new data is encouraging for Twitter — it is maintaining its US share while growing internationally and growing the use of its service on third-party applications through its APIs,” she wrote. “With a completely open social network where users can have as much control as they want over the amount of personal information they share, Twitter has got a lot going for it over Google Buzz.”