The first major announcement was Twitter Lists, which went live to all users on Friday. I agree with Scoble, Twitter Lists are the most significant upgrade to the Twitter platform since inception. Fresh on the heels of this announcement, Listorious created the first Twitter list directory site.

Twitter had a hot week. But they weren’t stopping there. Tweets from the Web 2.0 Summit were steadily quoting @Ev about the future of Twitter. My favorite quote from the show, “Twitter is an information network, not a social network.”

Another big move for Twitter last week was when they struck a deal with Bing and Google to populate relevant Tweets in search result pages. This was a clear warning shot across the bow of real time search startups like OneRiot.com.

In other big news last week, Google had their share of announcements.

Google Social Search is one of the more interesting developments from my perspective. Utilizing your Gmail contacts, Social Search finds results from your friend’s blogs, Twitter, and other social sites, and lets you filter out any results you don’t want included.

Google continued their string of announcements with the launch of Google Comparison engine which was released Thursday on the Adwords blog. This move, coupled with the Google maps redesign for Real Estate, is evidence Google is making a serious play in the Real Estate space.

And finally, Facebook:

Facebook made news with their homepage redesign last week. The move was prompted to give Facebook applications more exposure and relevancy moving forward. Users, as usual, reacted by forming groups that protested the new design.

Facebook also revamped it’s privacy policy, another move that sends shivers down the spine of their community.

Twitter made the most strides last week. Google was not far behind. And Facebook appeared to be mired by the diplomacy of their recent changes. It was a good week in tech news, with many substantial updates coming to fruition that will affect on the way we utilize these services.

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Twitter astronomic valuation, combined with mainstream media’s crush on the service, means that Twitter isn’t going to roll up into an acquisition any time soon. It might even take several years, but I would be willing to bet their new exit strategy was focused on going public.

Assuming a Twitter acquisition is off the table for everyone but Google, what is still in play?

Twitter Search, and significant licensing deal at that.

Twitter Search is the most useful technology being underutilized by mainstream audiences, and you can expect Google, Yahoo, Facebook, or Microsoft (Bing) to try and change that.

Twitter needs to get their search data in the hands of everyone, not just early adopters. If you ask someone that doesn’t follow Mashable or Techcrunch about Twitter Search, they probably won’t be able to tell you how to get there. However, if relevant Tweets were dispersed through channels the mainstream audience already uses (such as Google), Twitter could reach new heights of relevance and popularity.

Bing, Microsoft’s newsiest search engine has been the most aggressive at integrating Twitter using their API. They have started to display Tweets in their search results, and they have even created BingTweets.com.

If I were to guess who is going to complete the first meaningful integration of Twitter Search and share in the revenue, I’d have to say Bing.

The others will try, but I doubt they will have a chance:

* Google wants Twitter because it plans to incorporate social engagement in it’s ranking algorithm. Google is also making a big play into real time search, but is limited by the Twitter API.
* Yahoo wants Twitter, but will probably have to sit this one out. They don’t have the cash, resources, or community support to pull this one off.
* Facebook has already went to the alter with Twitter and got jilted. I doubt they will be at the bargaining table for Twitter Search, especially since they bought FriendFeed instead. Expect them to just copy Twitter features (only not nearly as effective, and 6 months too late).

So, the winner of Twitter Search data will be awarded to Bing. They have the willingness, resources, and resolve to make something like this happen. I also expect them to secure this deal because they are the least competitive to Twitter (with exception to Yahoo). Bing does not want to compete with a ‘Google-Twitter’ mash, and I can’t blame them.

Bing has been very aggressive lately, demonstrated by their deal to take over the Yahoo search results. Could you imagine if Bing gets the first Twitter Search rev-share deal?

I expect this to end in a royal rumble between Microsoft (Bing) and Google, and the winner will get the rights to Twitter Search, if only for 12-24 months. Shortly thereafter, the serious IPO talks will emerge. This is reminiscent of what happen with Google search in the early days. Here we go again. What do you think is going to happen?

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It didn’t take long before Robert Scoble panned the launch on his blog, and other tech influencers followed suit. People were very unimpressed. My speculation is that everyone over hyped the service as the next big thing, and when it launched it was nearly useless, and somewhat annoying. Google made us all look bad.

Google Wave won’t be the next big thing. It may not even be more popular than Basecamp for a long time. But kudos for Google for doing one thing well, MARKETING.

Usually Google under invests in this department. They have never realized marketing as a function of driving their billion dollar revenues. It’s always an after thought. In this case, marketing was at the forefront of their decision making.

Another anomaly was the bulky U/I from Google. Their User Interface department is famous for toning down the features, toggles, buttons, and overall distractions you encounter when using software (ie Google Voice). This initial release looked more like a Microsoft web app to me, than something Google designed.

I think Google Wave will survive this initial backlash. It is only a matter of time before interesting use-cases emerge, propelling it to become a service we see used by the masses.

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I’ve played with several keyword phrase comparisons and this is what I have noticed:
(1) Your Brand’s profile on Twitter and Facebook is ranking higher than it was, and in some cases it has moved to page 1 for your name
(2) Google is ranking sites with new information slightly higher
(3) Sites are ranking higher if they have obvious visitor engagement such as comments, Twitter feed, Facebook connect, etc.
(4) There is an emphasis on video, over images.
(5) Where there is collaboration and crowdsourcing, there is strong rankings (ie wikipedia).

CNet News is reporting this is the biggest change in ranking since 2006. The biggest improvement we’ve noticed is the speed.

What are you seeing that’s different?

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There is nothing especially innovative here, considering for Google’s knack for blowing us away with product features. What is important to note about this launch is how it might help your marketing efforts and search engine placement.

Whenever new social service launches, it usually makes sense to secure your business or brand name for a few reasons:

(1) Social foot print:
If you have a consistent presence across most of the Trusted sites like YouTube, LinkedIn, Yelp, etc, it makes it easy for your fans to connect with you and find you. The only way to get the same username on all services is to make sure you sign up right away, even if you don’t plan on using it. Having a deep social footprint (with strong connections, that link to your domain) will empower you to place higher than you would without one, for most keywords.

(2) Get known as an early adopter
When there are only a few people on a new service, the first adopters generally standout. When you import your fans from from other services, you will notice the same gang of innovators and influencers. When you are a business that adopts these technologies first, you will often find marketing bloggers linking to you out of recognition. Early adopters generally have good SEO placement, and there is an indirect correlation there.

(3) Trusted Links
The more trusted sites you have linking back to your main domain, the better your search placement will be. And, when that site linking back to you is GOOGLE, even better! Google Place Pages will help you rank for your business name, if you don’t already.

Each of these pages will apparently have a unique URL but will not be directly indexed in organic results. They will only appear via Maps and Local search, which does get highlighted in Google search above the traditional results.

To sign up for Google Place Pages, search for your business on Google maps, and look for the “EDIT” button in the listing bubble that pops up.

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