How nonexclusive is Microsoft’s deal with Twitter?

So nonexclusive that just hours after Microsoft (MSFT) announced it, rival Google (GOOG) lurched forward to say that it has entered into a similar partnership with the San Francisco-based microblogging service.

The search giant may be second to this party, but it’s not going to be late. But make no mistake–this is very clearly a rush job.

Some proof? Microsoft has code running. Google does not.

Twitter and Google announced the deal in posts to their respective company blogs.

“Our friends down in Mountain View want to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” Twitter co-founder Evan Williams wrote. “A fast growing amount of information is coursing through Twitter very quickly, and we want there to be many ways to access that information. As part of that effort, we’ve partnered with Google to index the entire world of public tweets as fast as possible and present them to their users in an organized and relevant fashion.”

Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search, was similarly enthusiastic about the deal.

“We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months,” Mayer wrote. “That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

Once Google gets around to indexing Twitter’s real-time data.

BoomTown got the ball rolling by making a visit to Twitter HQ bearing pies. During a video tour of the premises, Biz Stone discussed rock stars and booze, and spilled the secret of the strange green deer. Later, co-founders Stone and Evan Williams were customarily nonspecific in a conversation about their revenue plans, and BoomTown was a little bit horrified to have become one of Ashton Kutcher’s million-plus followers–maybe even the one that put him over the top in his race with CNN to hit the seven-figure mark. Still on the celebrity tip (but off the Twitter one), BoomTown took a moment to appreciate the self-deprecatory stylings of Lindsay Lohan’s eHarmony spoof and to embed the video on AllThingsD.com. Finally, was there anyone this week who missed Susan Boyle’s virtually instant stardom on “Britain’s Got Talent” via Google’s (GOOG) YouTube? BT took a look at the journey the story has taken from television to Internet, back to television and back to Internet again.

Back to Twitter, MediaMemo took a look at its amazing growth as a service and as a phenomenon–the “hockey stick,” as one early investor describes the company’s trajectory so far. MM also looked at a study from the USC neuroscience group that says despite all the hype–or maybe even because of it–the human brain just isn’t built to digest information at Twitter’s pace. In the world of cable this week, just as folks were wondering whether Congress will stop the cable companies from charging by the byte, Time Warner Cable (TWX), one of the key players in the drama, backed away from its plans to do so. MediaMemo followed that story as well.

In this week’s Personal Technology column, Walt Mossberg took a look at the latest version of Apple’s (AAPL) MobileMe, and while he found it to be a big improvement over the product launch from last summer, it’s not without limitations. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt answered questions from readers about displaying emergency contact numbers on a locked cellphone and the security of running Windows software on the Mac. And in Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret took a look at Gwabbit, a program built to mine emails for contact info.

More next week.

After a heady few days at the TED Conference in its new home in Long Beach, Calif., BoomTown asked other conference-goers, “Has your head exploded yet?” Their reports on what they learned while in attendance are many and varied. Among other things BoomTown learned this week: One company’s recession may be another company’s bubble. As such, Twitter announced a $250 million-dollar valuation and a $35 million round of funding this week, prompting the question of whether some search giant will swoop in before the whole thing falls apart. Apparently, new Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz has been asking a lot of questions of her staffers lately, like, “What exactly is your job description?” and “What do you do?” This has caused many, including BoomTown, to wonder whether she’s about to carry out the long-rumored re-org.

Meanwhile, in a different drama, Sirius XM (SIRI) is trying to avoid bankruptcy and fend off an unsolicited takeover bid by satellite mogul Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar (SATS), which has been gradually acquiring its debt. The company has approached Liberty Media (LINTA) about a possible sale, as apparently Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin can’t stomach the thought of giving up control to Ergen. Digital Daily has been following the plot twists. DD also reports that mobile phone giant Nokia (NOK) is approaching the need for a reduced headcount at one of its plants in a novel way–by putting 20-30 percent of its workforce on mandatory furlough at any given time. And a longtime opponent of Amazon (AMZN), the Author’s Guild, has raised a new objection to the company’s business practices. The trade group contends that the text-to-voice feature on the Kindle 2.0 e-book reader creates audiobooks for which it doesn’t own the rights. The details are in Digital Daily.

MediaMemo is a little bit obsessed with Twitter. But not without maintaining the minimum of reality required to wonder about a business model or two, especially in light of this week’s $35 million funding announcement. So it’s with a tiny grain of salt that MM took the word of both co-founder Biz Stone and CEO Evan Williams when they continued to insist that revenue is on the way. Speaking of missing business models, what’s up with Web video? Sony Music signed an agreement to keep its music videos on YouTube, and though details of the deal are unclear, MediaMemo sources familiar with the matter provided a breakdown of the revenue issues involved. And could the loss of 600,000 jobs in January be connected to a concurrent eye-popping traffic spike on the Web? Working less could mean surfing more–MediaMemo provided some very interesting dots to connect regarding the whole thing.

In Personal Technology this week, Walt Mossberg test-drove Sony’s (SNE) new Vaio P, which has incredible looks without the power (or personality) to back them up. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt wrote about using Foxmarks to sync bookmarks across multiple computers with different browsers. In this week’s Mossberg Solution, Katherine Boehret took a look at the growing range of mobile phones built specifically for seniors, with a focus on the ClarityLife C900.

More next week.

In late September Google purchased mobile social-networking start-up Zingku. Now it’s gone and bought Jaiku, a Finnish company that offers an “activity stream and presence-sharing service” similar to the more widely known Twitter. Two months. Two mobile social-networking start-ups. Google never explained its plans for Zingku. What’s it going to do with Jaiku? Who knows …

“We plan to use the ideas and technology behind Jaiku to make compelling and useful products,” product manager Tony Hsieh wrote in a post to Google’s corporate blog this afternoon. “Although we don’t have definite plans to announce at this time, we’re excited about helping drive the next round of developments in Web and mobile technology.”

Ah. Helping to drive them the way you drove Dodgeball? To that happy place where social-networking apps go to die? Kidding, of course.

Anyway … Why did Google choose Jaiku over Twitter, a similar company with far greater brand recognition? “The answer seems pretty obvious to me,” says Tim O’ Reilly. “Jaiku isn’t a ‘lifestreaming’ company per se. They are a mobile company in the business of creating smarter presence applications. Far from being a runner-up behind Twitter, they are a leader in a category most people haven’t fully grasped yet. Google is clearly thinking a lot about mobile, and so they do grasp it.”

Of course, there’s another answer to that question as well. Twitter founder Evan Williams, whose previous company, Blogger, was acquired by Google in February 2003, may not have wanted to see another of his creations doomed to irrelevance by the search giant.

Which is not to say Twitter won’t be acquired. As RedMonk analyst James Governor points out, the company is probably looking pretty good to Yahoo right now. “Google and Yahoo are in dueling acquisition mode, and Yahoo is almost certain to respond,” said Governor. “Especially since Twitter has begun to use a footer on SMS messages it sends out–which could of course be used as a microbillboard.”