In the search engine battle between Bing and Google, the folks from Microsoft scored a major victory this week.

The software giant’s general manager of its Search Technology center announced that Bing will include a tool that searches social networking sites like Twitter.

In a blog post on the Bing Community, Sean Suchter wrote:

“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 later 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 the below. (Note this feature will be rolling out gradually over the course of the next few hours so you may not see it right away.)”

Rumors had been circulating that Google might offer this kind of search tool, but it seems Microsoft’s pushing hard to make Bing a real challenger in the search engine fights.

Does this make Bing more appealing? Will it be a major factor in driving the search engine’s success?

Tags: Bing, Google, Microsoft, search tool, social networking, Twitter