Google Realtime Search (kind of) makes a comeback with Google+

Google’s Realtime Search function is set to make a comeback, but with no tweets or Facebook status updates. It will, instead, be limited to updates from Google+, Mashable reports.

Realtime Search was an additional feature of Google’s traditional search until it was given the boot in July.

Realtime allowed a user to see updates from various social networks and freshly updates from websites as they were posted live. Though there were some 17 sources for Realtime, however, it was primarily powered by featuring tweets as they were posted. When Google decided against extending the deal which gave it access to Twitter, Realtime was shut down.

Amit Singhal, a software engineer and Google Fellow who oversaw the initial development of Realtime, has said, however, that the Google Search team is “actively working” on bringing the product back.

He also said that Google was looking to use data from Google+ and other sources should it make a return.

There was no mention of Twitter.

When the deal between Twitter and Google expired, Twitter sent a statement to Search Engine Land saying,

Since October 2009, Twitter has provided Google with the stream of public tweets for incorporation into their real-time search product and other uses. That agreement has now expired. We continue to provide this type of access to Microsoft, Yahoo!, NTT Docomo, Yahoo! Japan and dozens of other smaller developers. And, we work with Google in many other ways.

Google’s comment on the closure, also to Search Engine Land, reads somewhat differently: “Twitter has been a valuable partner for nearly two years, and we remain open to exploring other collaborations in the future”.