Twitter has announced a new search engine that not only will bring back relevant tweets but also pictures and video.

Key to this is the second part of the announcment which is the long rumoured integrated image and video hosting option. It will be available via all of Twitter's offical mobile apps. (including Tweetdeck?) I suspect this will mean all new or relatively light users will immediatley simply make the switch without thinking, and never go back to Twitpic or Yfrog images.

There are other users though for who the images they post are more significant than the service they use. This move could have implications for users who have built up significant collections of images on Flickr or Posterous. It's also going to be tough for new kids on the block like Instagram and Color who, despite carving niches of their own, could face an uphill battle to keep users in the face of a well-integrated Twitter image and video service.

This is another step in broadening the Twitter experience too. We know that advertisers are keen for more opportunities to get in front of the millions of global eyeballs looking at the site. Until now photo-sharing pages from the likes have Twitpic have been one way of doing it. Perhaps now we could see them buying space on Twitter's own photo pages?

Also look out for all the Apple references in the video above. What could they be about hmmm?

So earlier this week twitter made a big announcement. The most interesting thing is that media such as videos and images will now appear in the stream rather like Facebook.

This is important because it means no longer will you have to go off of the current page to see what tweets are talking about. It means that sponsored tweets could include the YouTube video in support of the campaign will show up there in the feed. Clever social media chap Paul Armstrong has a good post for PR Week on the significance of this.

The design is clearly based on new Twitter iPad client and from the shots I've seen looks very slick and smooth.

It just shows how quickly things are moving for the social media site, which I joined in December 2006. In those days no one had an iPhone and mobile internet was very much a fledgling technology which meant the only way to interact with the site on the move was by using SMS. Now it is possible not only to tweet directly using any number of client apps but also take photos and even upload videos directly from your phone. Basically people, the future is here.