But, at worst, Google Instant did accomplish one thing: It represented the first obvious innovation that Google has rolled out before Microsoft since Microsoft embarrassed Google with real-time Twitter search and other search innovations that appeared to catch Google asleep at the switch.

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Last Wednesday Google announced Instant search, an impressive technical achievement that shows probable search results in real time--as you type letters into the search box.

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Google, for example, included tweets into its real-time search initiative, but that stopped over the summer.

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Google's Flu Trends looks at search terms to create real-time estimates of where the flu is flaring up.

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Real-time search company Topsy has launched a new search engine for Google Plus.

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The company, which already has a real-time search engine for Twitter, is now searching all public Google Plus posts.

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That means Facebook can leverage it for real-time search, and can also syndicate it to other places, like Google and Bing.

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It also facilitates the delivery of other online information, such as real-time gas prices, weather forecasts and points of interest search powered by Google Local Search.

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Google has been able to dominate search marketing thanks to its skill in delivering relevant ads to specific audiences in real time.

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While Google identifies macro trends, Twitter Search is highly effective at monitoring the elements of specific conversations and their changes in real time.

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