Twitter wasn’t a fad. A huge and steadily growing number of people get bite sized updates from friends, family, favorite blogs and Barack Obama. And Twitter has competition from services like Jaiku, Identi.ca and others. Consequently there is a wealth of microblog posts out there — up-to- the-minute current information waiting to be mined.

Previously, we have covered 3 ways to search Twitter. Now you an search across several microblog services with Swedish blog search engine Twingly’s brand new microblog search.

At the moment you can search Twitter, Jaiku, Identi.ca, Pownce (which is dead, but a six month archive remains searchable), Swedish Bloggy.se and the German Bleeper.de. And the Twingly team promise that more services will be added shortly.

How does it work?

To take Twingly microblog search for a spin, simply type a word or a phrase in the search box and hit the search button. The search results are comprised of a list of microblog posts, each labeled with the logo of the service it originates from (Twitter, Jaiku etc), the icon of the person who posted, a link to the original post and a time stamp. But there’s more.

You can subscribe to an rss feed with updates from your search. This is particularly handy because the search results are not updated in real time. The rss option is an obvious choice if you are researching a topic or following an athlete or a celebrity.

There is also a widget if you want to show the most recent microblog posts for a search query on your web site. However, for some reason, the widget requires that you post two strings of code: one where you want the widget and one just before the ending body tag. That’s just too much hassle.

There are several useful search operators:

• Searching for microblog posts written by a user
  Example: from:twingly
• Searching for microblog posts sent to a user
  Example: to:twingly
• Searching for microblog posts newer than a specific date
  Example: since:2009-01-01 twingly
• Searching for microblog posts older than a specific date
  Example: until:2009-01-01 twingly
• Searching for microblog posts with a hashtag (a way to add instant tags to microblog posts)
  Example: #twingly
• Searching for microblog posts referencing a user
  Example: @twingly

Is it any good?
The signal-to-noise ratio on microblog services is appalling. Still, these sites contain a wealth if information. With the right tool and a healthy amount of curiosity, microblogs are a goldmine of information.

It is a good idea to search across several microblog services. Twingly presents the search results in an informative manner and the advanced search options are great. So this can prove to be a useful service.

The lack of real time updates of the search results and the lousy widget are drawbacks, but Twingly microblog search is still a good tool.

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