• Search Engine Land, Wednesday, January 13, 2010 3:26 PM

In the age of Twitter, how does Google rank real-time tweets? In the social context, the number of people following someone is similar to the number of links pointing to a page, according to Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow who has led the development of Google's real-time search efforts.

It is not just about the number of Twitter followers, he adds, but also figuring out who the most "reputed followers" are. "You earn reputation, and then you give reputation," says Amit. "If lots of people follow you, and then you follow someone-then even though this [new person] does not have lots of followers," It is equated to a popularity contest."

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