Twitter’s growth is undeniable, but it’s usefulness remains up for debate. Now the company is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google about striking data-mining deals, reports the Wall Street Journal. These partnerships could be a way to mine useful, real-time news information from the tweets of millions worldwide.

According to the Journal, the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their two search giants.

Sources said a number of scenarios are being discussed to compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets from its 54 million monthly users.

Twitter may be seeking to create a large open platform that many different sites could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers, reports the Journal.

Twitter Exploring Huge Data-Mining Deals – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News – FOXNews.com