Microsoft says it does not plan to index all Twitter users, just "some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres."

Some technology analysts see Twitter as the next frontier in the field of Web search because of the real-time nature of the messages from its users.

Twitter's real-time stream of 140-character-or-less messages is not currently searchable on Google, the dominant Web search engine and Bing’s biggest competition.

Twitter does have its own search, though, and several outside developers have made applications that help user sift through the site.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Microsoft said its efforts with Bing and Twitter were "an initial foray into integrating more real time data into our search results."

Microsoft replaced its previous search engine with Bing in late May in a bid to compete with search market leader Google and number two Yahoo!

Web analytics firm StatCounter said Wednesday that Microsoft has indeed increased its share of the search market in the United States in June but still lags behind Google and Yahoo!

StatCounter said Microsoft carved out an 8.23 percent share of the US search market in June, up from 7.21 percent in April and 7.81 percent in May.

Yahoo!'s share of the search market was 11.04 percent in June, up from 10.99 percent in May but down from 11.27 percent in April.

Google continued to dominate the search market with a 78.48 percent share in June, down slightly from 78.72 percent in May and 79.07 percent in April.