Twitter's first major announcement of 2013 may indicate the direction it's focusing on this year: search.

The human touch

Twitter announced in a blog post that it had improved its search functionality through a partnership with Amazon's Mechanical Turk, the crowd-sourced workforce.

It works like this. Twitter's new API now sends trending search terms to Mechanical Turk's human 'judges', who will then categorise the results to make them more relevant to Twitter users.

Twitter then adds this content to its Discover tab.

Search and ye shall find

Computers excel at many things, but humans still have the edge in certain areas. Breaking through the noise of hashtags to pluck out meaningful news is a job still best suited to a human editor.

For example, when 'Kim Kardashian' trends does it mean she's given birth, filed for divorced or been spotted eating a hamburger?

By utilising Mechanical Turk's human touch, Twitter will make its search results more meaningful.

All the news that's fit to Tweet

Twitter's new souped-up search is positioning it at the place for breaking news, if it isn't already.

If Twitter successfully begins to curate and edit the avalanche of new streams it already hosts, it will position itself even more assertively as the destination for breaking news, rather that tradition media outlets.

Added bonus

Twitter's new search will also be a boon for brands, and when Mechanical Turk's taste-makers aren't sifting through the news they'll be working on positioning relevant ads to the right users.

For example, a user searching for the hashtag #bindersfullofwomen, which refers to Mitt Romney's gaffe during the 2012 US Presidential Election, will see ads relating to politics, not stationary.

This curated placement will mean advertisers are getting more back for their buck, and users will benefit from seeing more relevant content.

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