Microsoft just announced in a blog post that it was “integrating more real time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres.”

Microsoft (MSFT) said it is not indexing all of Twitter in its new Bing search service–not yet, that is–nor has it made any kind of exclusive deal with Twitter to add this real-time feed.

Recent tweets will be prominently displayed near the top of the search page, but could also be spread throughout the results.

The feature is now rolling out, so might not be able to be accessed immediately. It will be updated every minute, said Microsoft.

Microsoft is the first major search service to do this on a regular basis, using public programming interfaces, or API’s, available to anyone from Twitter–and it is an aggressive move, which seems to be part of its major push by Bing (which is, in fact, seeing some share gain in yet another report released today).

But, all are moving in that direction. While neither Google (GOOG) nor Yahoo (YHOO) is regularly indexing any part of the microblogging service’s real-time data stream yet, both have been testing the idea internally.

All three, though, do index static Twitter profiles in some way in their search results. They also can show older tweets that have specific keywords in them.

The Microsoft effort is different, and, um–and I had absolutely no idea that the company was doing this–appears to include BoomTown tweets, as well as those from other tech bloggers like Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan and a “few thousand people to start.”

Still, in a mission-accomplished effort to creep me out, Microsoft’s Sean Suchter, general manager of its Silicon Valley Search Technology Center, noted in the blog, “starting today, when you search for these folks names in association with Twitter, you’ll see their latest Tweets come up in real time on Bing’s search results.”

He then used my name and Twitter profile as an example, displaying some of my duller tweets of stories I had posted on All Things Digital.

(My testy roundelay with TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld about the veracity of its Twitter-about-to-sell-to-Google post a while back would have been much more interesting, and pertinent too!)

In an interview with me this afternoon, Suchter described the addition of the specific tweets as a “first step” in adding a lot more real-time data to Bing.

“Given Twitter is the big gorilla here and it is a really interesting frontier for search, we thought it was important to get something out there,” he said. “It is also about us learning how users interact with it that will also be really interesting.”

Suchter said Twitter is aware of the move, but that Microsoft did not need any extra help from the San Francisco start-up to launch it.

Suchter said it would begin with a limited number of tweets for now and will not include search results of tweets about a person–although that is possible. And Microsoft, he said, was not able to index all of Twitter at the present time.

“We would like to grow this, because this area is so exciting, so we wanted to get the plumbing working to show we could do it,” said Suchter. “And since there is a lot of useful content in Twitter and in this real-time corpus, it has to be a big part of the search experience in the future.”

This is obviously a first shot in what will be a long war over real-time search among Google, Microsoft and Yahoo–each of which has also been talking to Twitter about a variety of partnership deals that have yet to be struck.

Here is Suchter’s blog on the Twitter real-time data addition:

Bringing a Bit of Twitter to Bing

There has been much discussion of real-time search and the premium on immediacy of data that has been created primarily by Twitter. We’ve been watching this phenomenon with great interest, and listening carefully to what consumers really want in this space. Today we’re unveiling an initial foray into integrating more real time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres. This includes Tweets from folks from our own search technology and business sphere like Danny Sullivan or Kara Swisher as well as those from spheres of more general consumer appeal like Al Gore or Ryan Seacrest.

Starting today, when you search for these folks names in association with Twitter, you’ll see their latest Tweets come up in real time on Bing’s search results. For example, if you type “Kara Swisher Twitter” or “Kara Swisher Tweets” or even “@karaswisher” as your search query, you’ll see something like this:

The answer will include that person’s latest Tweets, along with an easy link to “See more tweets” from that individual.

We’re not indexing all of Twitter at this time… just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start. We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets. We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter’s public API to surface Tweets in people search. We’d love to hear your feedback as we think through future possibilities in real time search.

And while we may not be famous, we are prolific, so don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for all the latest news from Bing!

Sean Suchter, General Manager, Search Technology Center, Silicon Valley

Speaking of creepy stalking, please enjoy this nail-biting trailer for “Play Misty for Me”:

To clear things up, I’ve put together a basic Twitter guide that explains how to use it, Twitter lingo, privacy options, mobile applications that can be used with the service and problems that it has. Let’s get started.

Twitter limits social-networking updates to 140 characters or less. The service is surprisingly useful, but leaves room for improvement.

What is it? In short, Twitter is a free social-networking tool that keeps people connected with one another and with sources of information. Twitter users submit updates about whatever they’re currently doing, and these updates cannot exceed 140 text-based characters.

Lingo: Twitter is the name of the service. The term twittering describes the activity of updating a Twitter account. A tweet is an individual Twitter update. Twitterers are people who use the service.

Followers, not Friends: Social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace use the term “friend” to refer to people who are connected with one another, but Twitterers can simply follow one another’s messages by finding a person’s username and selecting a “Follow” option. This alerts the person that you’re following them, and they can reciprocally choose to follow you, or not.

Why use it? While some people primarily use Twitter to post updates about their activities or comments on the news, I use the service more as a follower, allowing me to see quick snippets of news as it occurs. Most tweets are written by real people, while others, such as updates from news organizations that you’ve selected, are automatically generated. Many tweets include the addresses of Web sites with relevant articles that tell readers more on a topic.

Where is it? Twitter works on your Web browser at Twitter.com, where user updates appear in a simple list form as they are submitted. After you’ve signed up and started following other people, those people’s updates, or tweets, will appear when you log onto Twitter.com using a username and password.

Twitter also works on mobile phones, where the 140-character limit allows messages to be sent and received via SMS text messaging. Tweets can also be sent and received via email. Users with smartphones like BlackBerrys or iPhones can use one of the many popular mobile applications for accessing Twitter, which offer much richer options than simple SMS does; I’ll get into these later.

Privacy: Unlike other social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter isn’t focused on holding and sharing personal information about its members. Indeed, the service operates with a majority (80%, according to the company) of users opting to keep their updates public, that is, follow-able by anyone, without permission. This openness encourages people to follow one another or to see who others are already following, and then follow the same people.

However, users can opt to protect their updates, meaning they must grant permission for others to follow them. If you’d like to sign up for Twitter, but aren’t comfortable putting your first and/or last name on the site, you don’t have to; instead, just tell others your username.

Twitter Page Personalization: Each user has a Twitter page showing all of his or her updates, or tweets. (Mine is twitter.com/kabster728, and you can follow me.) This page also shows the number of people a user follows, how many people follow her and how many total updates she has posted.

Twitterers can customize their Twitter page by uploading a photo to be used as the background. The icon representing each user can also be personalized, and this is important because it appears beside that person’s tweets on Twitter.com, where followers recognize and appreciate its familiarity. Some people, including me, use pictures of themselves as their icons, while others use random shots.

Apps/Clients: Twitter works on any browser, and will also work on a mobile browser. If you have a mobile device like the BlackBerry or iPhone, you can jazz up the experience by downloading a third-party app like TwitterFon, TwitterBerry, Tweetie or Twitteriffic. Twittervision, another mobile app, plots points on maps to show where tweets originated. Desktop clients also abound, including Twhirl and TweetDeck. Twitterfeed will set your blog to automatically post content to Twitter.

@Replies, Direct Messages: Each tweet that appears in your Twitter feed can be replied to using a shortcut arrow that appears beside the tweet, and these responses to tweets are called @Replies. So if JoeSchmo tweets to say he saw the new James Bond movie and hated it, you can reply to this with a tweet of your own that says, “@JoeSchmo I still adore Daniel Craig.” These @Replies appear for everyone to see, and must start with @ plus the username of whomever you’re responding to.

Direct Messages differ from @Replies because they can be sent only between people who are following one another. These messages aren’t posted publicly. They appear on your Twitter.com page in a right-side section labeled Direct Messages and will also be sent to your mobile device if you have one registered with Twitter.

Favorites: If you read a tweet that you really like, you can save it as a favorite by selecting a small star beside the tweet, thus adding it to a Favorites section on your homepage. Anyone can see anyone else’s Favorites, regardless of whether or not they’re following one another.

Problems: Twitter’s bare-bones approach gets to the point quickly, displaying tweets in a simple, quick-read format. But the site is lacking in many areas. It used to enable searching for people on Twitter, but that capability is currently down. Now, to search for friends on Twitter, you must upload your email contacts from a Web-based mail service. The company says it plans to have people-search working again by the end of the year. Meanwhile, search.twitter.com enables keyword or location searches.

Twitter lacks the ability to sort tweets according to what the user wants. If I just want to see tweets from real people and not those that are automatically generated, I’m out of luck. Same goes if I want to keep certain friends’ tweets in a prominent place on my homepage; Twitter has no way of doing this.

Twitter users aren’t notified when someone responds to their tweet with an @Reply. I recently happened to look at @Replies on my Twitter homepage and found three from people who follow me (I don’t follow them).

If you’re adding a Web address to a tweet and the characters in the URL take up too much space, Twitter will automatically use TinyURL behind the scenes to shrink your long link into a shorter one when you post your tweet. But this works only if you have enough remaining characters in your tweet to fit the long version of your link. A built-in TinyURL converter on the page would help immensely.

Twitter says it’s working to make @Replies more effective. It also says it plans to do more with filtering and sorting, so that the Twitter interface is more useful. In the meantime, Twitter does a good job of giving people simplified news about others and the world around them. If you’re often in a rush, Twitter can be a great resource for fast information.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com