Only recently, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt publicly dismissed Twitter as a "poor man's email" and shot down speculation that Google were in fact interested in buying the micro-blogging phenomenon.

According  to the latest data from compete.com, Twitter search is now very close to surpassing the number of  users using Google Blog Search which further demonstrates the growing popularity of Twitter and strengthens the argument that Twitter is a real threat to Google.

I suspect that Mr Schmidt knows only too well that there was a time when Blog Search engines were the only way to search for fresh content on the web but that has now obviously changed with the rising popularity of Twitter. Now even the regular web search bots of Google can crawl all web content in almost real-time, as it is submitted. This means within minutes of getting published, content can be found so there’s little need for people to use a specialist blog search tool.

Google Blog Search has 1.38m unique monthly users and Twitter search has 1.35m so at this moment in time, Google is still ahead however, traffic on Twitter search trebled last month while Google Blog Search saw static numbers. It doesn’t take a genius to predict next month’s figures and who will be leading the race. Without a doubt Twitter search will very shortly take the lead.

As a result of the growing popularity Twitter’s market share is benefiting from increased media coverage too, which will only help maintain the momentum. Twitter now receives as many as 8,000 mentions in the press on a weekly basis which is actually four times as many as a year ago.

Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up an impressive 700+% vs. year ago. The past two months alone have seen worldwide visitors climb more than 5 million. U.S. traffic growth has been just as dramatic, with Twitter reaching 4 million visitors in February, up more than 1,000% from a year ago.

These impressive stats are probably a part of the reason they turned down a 500-million-dollar takeover offer from social network colossus Facebook just a few months ago and also fuelling the speculation that Google are in fact looking to buy Twitter in an attempt to maintain control of the web.

And so, as the figures grow I suspect we will definitely see Mr Schmidt publicly change his tune about this “poor mans email”. Interestly, if Google were to buy Twitter, this wouldn’t be the first deal struck between Google and the Twitter founders. Twitter co-founders Stone and Evan Williams sold the blog-making website "Blogger" to Google five years ago.

One thing is for sure, whoever owns it, Twitter is here to stay. I would advise getting to grips with it sooner rather than later if you haven’t already. For those who have begun to tweat – start thinking about seriously focussing on using Twitter to aid your business objectives.

They say a rising tide lifts all ships and like all technologies trends and technological cultural shifts, those who get in early benefit the most. Before the world is saturated with Tweats you could be benefiting from building your own following to help stay ahead of the curve.

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