In an attempt to make Google more real-time, the search engine giant on Wednesday introduced a new feature called Google Instant.

Google Instant makes searching the web faster by bringing up search results as you type in your query. As you type in your query into the Google search box, the search displays a list of suggested phrases you are likely to search for and brings up the search results for the top suggested phrase.

Pretty cool new feature, but kind of useless for me as I make use of the Chrome address bar to enter my search queries. Adding another step to get to my search results with Google Instant is a bit cumbersome, would be cool though if Google could build this into Chrome somehow.

To test out Google Instant for yourself head on over to Google.com and start typing in your search query.

First it was MyScoop and now Afrigator has also introduced real-time aggregation for blogs that support the PubSubHubbub functionality.

Stii software developer at Afrigator has just announced on his blog that real-time feed updates with PubSubHubbub has been implemented into Afrigator, but they still seem to have some issues with Blogger or Blogspot feeds.

For more info on the real-time aggregation of Afrigator feeds go check out Stii’s post.

Great news for local bloggers is that MyScoop the new up and coming local blog aggregator in South Africa has again beat the competition to it. Just a few days ago I wrote about PubSubHubbub that will enable real-time aggregation, and now I’m proud to say MyScoop has listened again.

MyScoop is now the first local blog aggregator that will aggregate local blogs in real time, no more waiting 20-30 minutes or logging in to you account and ping your blog for your article to be aggregated.

MyScoop has integrated the PubSubHubbub technology into their site and will now aggregate your articles in real-time. What does this mean you ask? Well to put it simply you can now get your articles submitted in real-time to the aggregator, and with MyScoop’s great SEO your articles will even rank higher faster.

How do you get access to this real-time aggregation you ask? Just follow these simple steps.

1. Register a account at MyScoop if you do not already have one, you can use your Twitter, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, OpenID or Blogger third party account if you do not wish to remember another password.
2. Your blog must either run from WordPress.com or must be a stand alone WordPress installation, WordPress.com users will not need to do anything further as their blog will already be integrated with PubSubHubbub.
3. If you have your own WordPress installation you will need to download a plugin to activate the real-time aggregation. Simply go to PubSubHubbub plugin page, download the plugin and install.
4. After installation simply activate the plugin and you should be ready to go. MyScoop will pick the plugin up in a few minutes or alternatively you can just ping your blog for the last time for MyScoop to pick up the changes.
5. You are now aggregated in real-time, enjoy!

Great new feature and thanks to Nick Duncan for staying up till wee hours of the morning to implement these changes.

Google recently signed a deal with micro blogging site Twitter to index Twitter feeds in real time. The end result is Google’s real time search.

Imagine you need to head into Cape Town but would like to know how the traffic is to plan your trip. Well all you would have to do with Google’s real time search is type in CapeTraffic and it would show you latest tweets from the CapeTraffic hash being used by Capetonian tweeters.

Not only does Google Real Time Search index Twitter in real time but freshly published web pages, Tweets, MySpace updates and shockingly, Facebook public profiles. Check out the demo video below.

Want to see real-time results for any query right now? Go to http://google.com/trends and click on any of the hot topics on that page. Replace the search query in that page’s URL with a new search term and if real time results are available, you’ll be able to see them.

Awesome don’t you think?

Amatomu a South African blog aggregator has been out of Alpha phase for two months now and still it is plagued with errors.

When Amatomu moved into Beta stage two months back you could have seen that the site has been improved with faster loading times, almost real time aggregation of blog posts just to name a few. Lately it has been a whole different story, with constant DB errors when visiting the site and even showing as logged in as ThoughtLeader who I am not.

Amatomu it’s time to step up and either fix your product or just take it of the market. I’m actually a fan of Amatomu as I like the layout of their site and the way they show whats hot currently in the blog sphere and rankings per category, but I’m getting really annoyed by the fact that the site is slow as hell when you try to access some features and aggregations that does not occur almost instantly but rather a few days after you posted your blog entry. Not to mention that I’m sometimes showing as logged in as another user.

A while back Christopher Mills owner of iMod launched a campaign to get bloggers to refrain from using Amatomu, I’m currently feeling the same vibe at the moment, maybe if all the bloggers just boycott Amatomu they will get their act together and start focusing on releasing a product that works. In the mean time if you are a sole user of Amatomu check out Afrigator, they are an example of how to run a aggregation service.

While our eyes was full of Bing, another search engine entered the market silently.

Collecta the brand new search engine went live on 18 June 2009 without any big bangs or heavy marketing. You are probably asking so what makes Collecta different than Google or Bing or Yahoo? Collecta is a search engine with a new take on searching, it searches the web in a way no other search engine does. Collecta is a real-time search engine, crawling the web as you enter the keywords and spitting out the results in real-time.

The web is alive with real-time information. So why search a stale archive? Collecta monitors the update streams of news sites, popular blogs and social media, and Flickr, so we can show you results as they happen. Give it a try.