It’s official: Google has launched its real-time search! What does this mean for your organization?

(Google is rolling the new feature out slowly, so if you don’t have the “Real-Time Results” option yet, don’t worry. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, I didn’t either, but at 5:10, it magically appeared.)

I wrote about this when the deal was initially announced back in October, but I can’t stress the implications for associations and organizations enough.

When everyone has access to Google’s real-time search, the possibilities will be endless.

Now, whenever anyone posts anything — anywhere — with your organization’s name or acronym, it will appear in Google search results instantly. This includes Twitter, Yahoo! Answers, live news and more.

Now, during your conference, the “Latest results” portion of Google will be (hopefully!) bursting with tweets and blog posts about it. But don’t forget that the positives and the negatives will both be included.

Now, your members and non-members (and prospective members!) will have an easier time finding out what current members have to say about the organization. Any semblance of control you might have had is slowly shifting.

But this can be a blessing in disguise! This can encourage association leaders to become even more innovative, to provide even more value and to host absolutely amazing events! If you don’t want members to say anything bad about the organization online, work hard so they don’t have a reason to. Don’t just be complacent to do things the way they’ve always been done.

Even if your members are currently using social media en masse right now, this is still too important for your association to ignore. Don’t forget potential younger members – teens and twenty-somethings – are usually fluent in the social Web and will likely already be using social media tools before they join, or consider joining.

Check out Google’s short demonstration video to see it in action. It’s pretty cool, and I’m glad to see a company as forward-thinking as Google jump on the real-time search bandwagon.