(Adds comment from Twitter co-founder)

 With Google long-seen as the undisputed leader in Web search, it was interesting to see research showing Microsoft winning some market share with its new Bing search engine, in research from Internet data firm StatCounter.

But, the fact that Google’s tiny market share decline in U.S. Web searches to 78.48 percent from 78.72 percent is news at all goes to show how tough a job Microsoft has ahead of it.

And since Bing just launched June 3 ,it will be interesting to see if Microsoft’s search share boost to 8.23 percent of he U.S. market, from 7.81 percent before Bing, is just a kick-off spike.

In the meantime, an arguably higher-profile Web service is attracting sharp criticism as bloggers scratched their heads over Twitter’s warning to an application developer against using the word Tweet, the moniker for its miniblog entries.

Techcrunch posted what it said was an email that suggested as much from a Twitter team member to an outside developer that created an interface similar to Twitter’s:

Twitter, Inc is uncomfortable with the use of the word Tweet (our trademark) and the similarity in your UI and our own. How can we go about having you change your UI..

Techcrunch asked if TweetDeck, TweetMeme, Tweetie, BackTweets, Tweetboard etc should worry?

And in businessinsider.com, Henry Blodget warned Twitter against taking up arms against the very applications that helped make Twitter famous. “Let it go, folks, let it go. When you reach for a “Kleenex” or hunt for a “Xerox machine,” you’re helping those brands stay front and center,” Blodget said.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone confirmed the spirit of the memo in an email response to Reuters but it wasn’t immediately  clear to us if the “original branding” push would be foisted on just new app developers or if it would push for brand changes in existing apps too. He said:

The ecosystem growing around Twitter is something we very much believe in nourishing and supporting. As part of this support, we encourage developers of new applications and services built using Twitter APIs to invent original branding for their project rather than use our marks, logos, or look and feel. This approach leaves room for applications to evolve as they grow and it avoids potential confusion down the line.

Keep an eye on:

• Fired columnist Roger Friedman sues News Corp (LA Times)
• Vibe Magazine shutting (DailyFinance)
• Michael Jackson shatters chart records (Billboard)
• Party celebrates China Web filter delay (Reuters)
• Facebook in investor spotlight, but values vary (Reuters)

(Reuters photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer)