WebProNews

Tag: Bing

  • Bing Maps Gets Tons Of New Bird’s Eye Imagery

    Bing announced today that it has made some updates to Bing Maps, including the addition of its biggest batch of bird’s eye imagery to date. They’ve added about 270 terabytes of data, which they note is the equivalent of 100,000 DVDs worth.

    Bing has now published a total of 1,452,958 sq km, or half a petabyte worth of bird’s eye imagery.

    Bing Bird's Eye imagery

    Most of of the new imagery is in the U.S., with a bit in Europe, Australia, and Asia.

    Bing has also expanded venue maps and added a new “Report a Problem” feature.

    “Ever need to find your seats at a football game? Lost in the Mall of America? With more than 4,700 Venue Maps in more than 59 countries on Bing Maps, you can navigate your way around malls, airports, amusement parks and more using your Windows phone, tablet, or PC!” Bing writes in a blog post.

    Bing Venue Maps

    “While on Bing Maps and within a zoom level of 1000 feet, purple and green polygons will appear to outline particular points of interest for a given venue. Green shading indicates restaurants, while stores appear purple,” Bing explains. “When you click on any outlined polygon, a directory will appear with a full list of points of interest and offer options to visually explore additional floors of the venue.”

    To access the “Report a Problem” feature, just click on the point in question and click “Report a problem” in the box that appears.

  • Can Bing Put A Bigger Dent In Google Searches?

    Bing has been struggling to make a significant dent in Google’s share of the search market since its launch, but Bing’s share has been slowly growing over that time. While Bing still has a very long way to go if it intends to catch Google, recent developments can only serve to help it on its way.

    Will Bing ever catch up to Google in search market share? Let us know what you think.

    On Monday, Apple revealed iOS 7, the new version of the operating system that powers iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. This is greatly significant for Bing. Apple has not exactly made Bing the default search on the devices, but it has replaced Google with Bing on the Siri feature, which is starting to look a great deal more competitive with Google’s conversational search and Knowledge Graph offerings.

    While demonstrating the operating system at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple revealed a handful of new Siri features. It can now understand more types of commands. The examples Apple showed were:

    • “Play last voicemail”
    • “Increase brightness”
    • “What is John Appleseed saying?”
    • “Tell me about surfing”
    • “What are the best beaches for surfing?”

    Siri will now include web results from Bing when it doesn’t have a direct answer for the user, replacing Google as the provider of supplemental web results. Here’s what Bing Corporate Vice President Derrick Connel had to say about it:

    Starting this fall with iOS 7, Bing will power Siri’s new integrated web search. When users ask Siri a question either the specific answer or web search links will now be delivered automatically so users can find information even faster.

    Bing was designed from the outset to be a great place for web search helping customers quickly find what they are looking for and get more out of search. We are thrilled that all the great results people have come to know and love on Bing.com will now be available to Siri users on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

    Making sure customers can have access to the power of Bing where and when they need it has been a big focus of the work we have done over the past few years, and we are excited to work with Apple to deliver it to Siri users this fall.

    Siri also now utilizes Wikipedia content to provide users with information making it much more like Google’s offering. Google’s Knowledge Graph relies heavily on Wikipedia.

    Siri also now searches Twitter when users want to know what people are saying about a topic.

    Siri itself is becoming a better competitor to Google’s voice search (which for some Android users is probably the primary way they search from their mobile devices) simply by making it do more things. With greater functionality, it stands to reason that people will use it more, and with Bing providing the web results, that means more people searching Bing.

    Now consider how many people use iOS. At Apple’s event, CEO Tim Cook revealed that the company has sold 600 million iOS devices since the first iPhone was introduced. According to Cook, iPhone users use their device 50% more than Android users use theirs. He also noted that 60% of the mobile web share goes to iOS, and that 93% of iOS users are using the latest version of iOS. That’s a lot of potential Siri users, which going forward could translate to a growing number of Bing users, even if they’re not going to Bing.com to conduct their searches.

    And we’re just talking iOS. More vehicle owners will also start getting more acquainted with Siri.

    How long until Apple brings Siri to the dekstop? It’s somewhat surprising that it’s not included in the new Mac OS X Mavericks, which is getting more features previously only available on iOS. It seems like only a matter of time, especially considering that Google recently launched its conversational search (previously only available on Android) for the desktop.

    So, suffice it to say, Apple has the potential to greatly help Bing get more users. But it’s not just Apple.

    Think about Facebook, with its over a billion users strong. Bing has long been the provider of web results on Facebook Search, but Facebook Search is changing. At this point, to some of us Graph Search seems like it’s been around for a long time, and it hasn’t exactly revolutionized search, but it’s easy to forget how early it really is in the life of Graph Search.

    Facebook hasn’t even rolled it out to all users. It’s unclear just what percentage of users have it at this point. It’s not a stat that Facebook provides. But beyond that, Facebook also has much bigger plans for what Graph Search will actually do. Eventually, it will be able to retrieve a lot of different kinds of data than what it does today.

    Another major factor for Graph Search is that it has yet to be launched for mobile, which is the format that would make much of Graph Search’s current functionality more useful. For example, one of its current strong points it local search. It would be much more helpful to be able to pull up nearby restaurants when you’re close by (similar to Yelp’s new feature).

    And like with Siri, the more useful Graph Search gets, the more people will potentially find themselves perusing web results provided by Bing rather than Google. In either case (Siri or Graph Search), even if they don’t have to resort to the Bing-provided web results, they’re searching with non-Google products to begin with. Whether it’s Apple, Facebook or Bing, they’re getting their answers from someone that’s not Google, and that’s not good for Google.

    Microsoft itself is also going out of its way to get people using Bing more from its other products like Windows and Xbox (two very popular products, I might add).

    While many have been less than impressed with Microsoft’s big Xbox One announcement, there’s not doubt that it will get its share of users. Here’s Bing’s role in that console, as described by Microsoft:

    Bing also is tightly integrated into the Xbox entertainment experience. When you search by voice for movies, TV shows or music, Bing is the service providing the instant responses. That experience is going to get a WHOLE lot better with Xbox One. I don’t know about you, but snap mode looked incredibly compelling to me. Now imagine you’re watching a movie on your new Xbox One and you want to find additional information about the cast. As Yusuf showed yesterday, just say, “Xbox, Snap Internet Explorer.” Now IE with Bing as my home page is running next to the movie I’m watching. Finding information about the cast is, yes, just a snap. Or, as Don Mattrick said in explaining the team’s mission to transform our entertainment experiences, “Simple. Instant. Complete.”

    Then there’s Windows 8.1, which gets a substantial Bing upgrade. With the new Bing experience on Windows, users get rich images across their search results, and Bing searches across the web and the user’s machine.

    “With search in Windows 8.1 our intent is to have one way to find what you’re looking for, no matter where it lives – whether it’s a document on your PC, a photo album in the cloud, an app, PC setting or a website. In just a tap or a click you can play, view, launch, or browse,” explained Connell in a recent blog post. “To set the course, we looked hard how people have been interacting with the new user experience introduced in Windows 8. Search has long been a part of Windows – especially powerful and useful in Windows 8 – where the Search Charm gives you a single place to find content in your apps. People told us they liked the ease of having fewer places to search. In Windows 8, people could direct their question at an app (like Travel) and have Bing bring back a beautiful, multi-faceted set of information and tools to help them plan their summer trip. But Windows 8.1 takes an even bigger step – with its new search experience, you can find your own personal stuff as well as content from the open web and the creativity of the millions of authors and developers.”

    “Imagine you’re planning a trip to Paris,” he added. “Simply type the name of the city and you’ll immediately see beautiful, full-bleed images, upcoming events in the city, and popular attractions. But you can also check the current weather and book a hotel in the Bing Travel app, without having to open it up and type ‘Paris’ again. In the same way, your itinerary and budget, whether they are saved on your laptop or in the cloud, are right there. And of course, we’ll show you the great web results you’ve come to expect from Bing. ‘Paris’ isn’t just a single file or a search query in an app: it is a concept, full of both meaning and context, and we’ll bring its unique meaning to your digital life, all in one place.”

    Of course all of this Bing exposure also means more branding for Bing, and could result in more people simply thinking of Bing when it’s time to just perform a search regardless of what device they’re using. All of the movie and TV product replacement could help too, not to mention the TV commercials.

    I wouldn’t count on Bing overtaking Google’s share of the search market anytime soon, but it seems fairly likely that we’re going to continue to see Bing chipping away at it little by little, and some moves may result in bigger chunks.

    Results came out last month for the search market in the U.S. for April. Google’s share dropped, while Bing’s passed 17%.

    Do you think Bing will continue to gain on Google for the foreseeable future? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • Bing Talks New Siri Integration

    Bing Talks New Siri Integration

    As previously reported, Apple unveiled some new Siri features for iOS 7 today at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Among them is some new Bing integration, which will see Bing delivering web results when people search with Siri, and it doesn’t have a direct answer for the user.

    Bing Corporate Vice President Derrick Connell took to the Bing blog this afternoon to weigh in on the announcement. He wrote:

    Starting this fall with iOS 7, Bing will power Siri’s new integrated web search. When users ask Siri a question either the specific answer or web search links will now be delivered automatically so users can find information even faster.

    Bing was designed from the outset to be a great place for web search helping customers quickly find what they are looking for and get more out of search. We are thrilled that all the great results people have come to know and love on Bing.com will now be available to Siri users on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

    Making sure customers can have access to the power of Bing where and when they need it has been a big focus of the work we have done over the past few years, and we are excited to work with Apple to deliver it to Siri users this fall.

    Apple did not make any indication that Bing will become the default search provider on the iPhone, replacing Google in Safari. Neither Apple or Microsoft specified whether Siri will be able to switch between Bing or other search engines with Settings adjustments.

    Either way, this is great news for Bing, which can only gain searches from this partnership, which should nicely complement its Facebook partnership, where it provides web results for Graph Search (which has still yet to completely roll out to users).

    Siri also has new Twitter search capabilities and Wikipedia integration, making it a more viable competitor to Google’s conversational search and Knowledge Graph (which draws a great deal from Wikipedia itself).

  • Siri Gets More Knowledge Graph-Like With Wikipedia, Bing

    While demonstrating iOS 7 at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced some new Siri features. Among them, integration of Bing web search results.

    Siri has a new interface, and even a new male voice. It now understands more types of commands, such as:

    • “Play last voicemail”
    • “Increase brightness”
    • “What is John Appleseed saying?”
    • “Tell me about surfing”
    • “What are the best beaches for surfing?”

    In addition to the Bing web search results, it now has Wikipedia integration, which should make it significantly more Knowledge Graph-like. Google’s Knowledge Graph, as you may know draws from Wikipedia a great deal. The new features should reduce the gap between the two offerings.

    You can also search Twitter with Siri now.

    Update: Here’s what Apple says about Siri in the iOS 7 press release:

    Siri sounds better than ever with new male and female voices and includes Twitter search integration, so you can ask Siri what people are saying on Twitter*. Siri also now has Wikipedia integration, providing access to the world’s most popular Internet reference site. Siri offers Bing web search within the app and the ability to change device settings and play back voicemail.

  • Bing Desktop Adds Facebook Notifications, Inline Search & More

    Bing announced today that it’s rolling out some new features for Bing Desktop. These include inline search, new desktop apps, an updated news experience and Facebook notifications.

    “Bing is continuing to build on the useful and convenient experience used by over 10 million people worldwide,” a Bing spokesperson tells WebProNews.

    Users can now search directly from a webpage, word document or PDF file by highlighting a word or phrase and clicking the Bing icon. Bing will display a preview of search results in a window without the user having to leave what they’re looking at to begin with.

    There’s a new weather app, and the news and Facebook apps have been revamped.

    “The updated news app now offers news across a variety of categories right at a glance,” the spokesperson says. “We’ve added a new cascading layout that lets you see images and text summaries so you can keep up on the news you’re interested in. We’ve also added a visual collection of the top trending items on the Web so you can keep your finger on what’s happening in an attractive waterfall layout.”

    “To help you keep tabs on what’s happening with your Facebook friends, you will now see a notification appear whenever there is an update for you to check out,” he adds.

    You can find Bing Desktop here. More about the new stuff on the Bing blog.

  • Microsoft Talks Bing On Windows 8.1

    Microsoft Talks Bing On Windows 8.1

    As previously reported, Windows 8.1 is adding an updated Bing experience. Now, we have a better idea of what that entails, as Microsoft has just put out a blog post about them.

    With the new Bing experience on Windows, you’ll see rich images across your search results, and Bing will search across the web as well as your machine.

    “With search in Windows 8.1 our intent is to have one way to find what you’re looking for, no matter where it lives – whether it’s a document on your PC, a photo album in the cloud, an app, PC setting or a website. In just a tap or a click you can play, view, launch, or browse,” explains Bing Corporate Vice President Derrick Connell. “To set the course, we looked hard how people have been interacting with the new user experience introduced in Windows 8. Search has long been a part of Windows – especially powerful and useful in Windows 8 – where the Search Charm gives you a single place to find content in your apps. People told us they liked the ease of having fewer places to search. In Windows 8, people could direct their question at an app (like Travel) and have Bing bring back a beautiful, multi-faceted set of information and tools to help them plan their summer trip. But Windows 8.1 takes an even bigger step – with its new search experience, you can find your own personal stuff as well as content from the open web and the creativity of the millions of authors and developers.”

    “Imagine you’re planning a trip to Paris,” says Connell. “Simply type the name of the city and you’ll immediately see beautiful, full-bleed images, upcoming events in the city, and popular attractions. But you can also check the current weather and book a hotel in the Bing Travel app, without having to open it up and type ‘Paris’ again. In the same way, your itinerary and budget, whether they are saved on your laptop or in the cloud, are right there. And of course, we’ll show you the great web results you’ve come to expect from Bing. ‘Paris’ isn’t just a single file or a search query in an app: it is a concept, full of both meaning and context, and we’ll bring its unique meaning to your digital life, all in one place.”

    More from Connell here.

    As Greg Sterling noted at Search Engine Land, depending on user adoption, the new Bing integration could help Microsoft whittle away a bit of market share from Google. It will have to do better than Windows 8 has done so far though.

  • Windows 8.1 Comes With Bing Upgrade

    Update: Bing now has an official post about the new features.

    Windows 8 is about to get a big dose of Bing, according to reports. We’ve already seen the return of the Start button in a leaked screenshot of Windows 8.1, the operating system’s coming update, but there are some interesting Bing-related changes in store as well.

    Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling got ahold of some screen caps of the new experience, along with a description from the company itself, which is as follows:

    We think that your search experience should be beautiful as well as functional and we don’t think the two are at odds. Modern search takes the best of Bing multimedia and brings it into the Windows search experience to create something that’s not only useful and well-organized but also highly crafted. You’ll see rich images across all your search results that help you find what you’re looking for faster and help bring order to the vast information on the web. Modern search needs to be functional, and we think it should also be spectacular.

    Sterling himself explains, “Bing has incorporated the Windows 8 design into the presentation of content and made it much more visually appealing. Users don’t ‘go to Bing’ to obtain the new experience; it’s available from any screen. In the old days this deep OS-search integration might have raised anti-competitive concerns; however not in the current climate. And it has competitive implications for Google if Windows 8.1 is successful. However Windows 8 has struggled to date.”

    Here’s a partial look at one of the images he shares, which comes directly from Microsoft. Check the article to see more.

    Bing on Windows 8

    Earlier this month, Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc talked about the operating system update in a blog post, saying, “Windows 8.1 will help us to deliver the next generation of PCs and tablets with our OEM partners and to deliver the experiences customers— both consumers and businesses alike —need and will just expect moving forward. Today, there are more devices – and choice – allowing you to pick the right Windows 8 device that meets your needs. Windows 8 provides a great experience for consuming and creating content, for both work and play and on the go. And you’ll immediately benefit from continual updates – whether it’s from app updates through the Windows Store, performance updates through Windows Update or the Windows 8.1 update later this year.”

    Windows 8.1 will be a free update to Windows 8 via the Windows Store. It will enter public beta in June. I would imagine the Bing team will be offering up more details on the new experience as it’s released.

  • Bing Launches News Carousel Feature For Bing News

    Bing Launches News Carousel Feature For Bing News

    Bing announced the launch of a new feature in Bing News called the News Carousel. When a user searches for a person of note (i.e. a celebrity or politician), they will see a visual carousel with current topics related to that person. On the right-hand side of the page, they will also see related people.

    A Bing spokesperson explains, “Say you’re searching for Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber, you’ll see in the News Carousel images of stories related to them, such as Bieber losing custody of his Capuchin monkey to the German government. On the right-hand side of the page you’ll also see related people that might be of interest because they have some sort of relationship to your query.

    Bing News Carousel

    “To do this Bing is leveraging the Satori technology that brings a deep understanding of the relationships between people, places and things to power the visual carousel that makes it easy to explore current events and other people related to the person you are searching for,” he adds.

    Satori, which means “Understanding” in Japanese, is basically Bing’s version of Google’s Knowledge Graph, and powers Bing’s Snapshot experience, as described here.

    “And that’s not the only progress we’ve made over at Bing News. We recently extended our news articles index beyond two weeks,” says Bing’s Tim Leung on the Bing blog. “This means when there’s no fresh news related to a given query, we can look back over several years to bring you any relevant articles. This is a pretty significant update and is just the start as we work to make Bing News even more comprehensive. While there’s still more to do, we believe these updates provide you with a deeper understanding of the world and an opportunity to explore the connections we’re able to make over here at Bing.”

    More on the blog.

  • Bing To Add Klingon Language To Translator To Market ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

    Bing To Add Klingon Language To Translator To Market ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

    Update: Bing has now made the official announcement.

    Bing is reportedly adding the Klingon language to Bing Translator as part of a marketing deal between Microsoft and Paramount, as the studio prepares to release Star Trek Into Darkness.

    While we’ve been unable to bring up the language in Bing Translator so far, The LA Times (via Engadget) reports that it is coming today:

    The Bing service will translate text written in any one of 41 supported languages — including English, French, Hebrew and Urdu — into Klingon. Fear not, native Klingon speakers: words or phrases written in that language can be translated into the more than three dozen available tongues.

    According to the report, Microsoft engineer helped develop the feature, has he apparently speaks Klingon. The LA Times shares a quote from Bing’s Craig Beilinson: “We have people who understand the deep science of linguistics and we also have people who are passionate about the ‘Star Trek’ franchise. This was a labor of love from a lot of different avenues.”

    This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Klingon Language utilized by a major search engine. You can still see the Google Klingon homepage here.

    Star Trek Into Darkness releases in the U.S. on May 17th.

    Image: StarTrek.com

  • Bing Autosuggest Adds More People Info

    Bing Autosuggest Adds More People Info

    Bing announced the addition of some more information about people in its autosuggest feature. Now, when you search for celebrities, politicians, athletes, or people with LinkedIn profiles, Bing will provide info about that person in the drop-down with the search suggestions.

    In cases where there are multiple people with the same name, it will ask which one you meant:

    Bing Autosuggest

    The feature is part of Bing’s “snapshot” pane, which Bing launched last year.

    “The goal of Bing’s Snapshot feature – our center column on the main results page – is to help people find information they need to understand their world,” a Bing spokesperson tells WebProNews. “With the people category as the second largest searched on Bing, we’re giving you another way to find people faster and directly from the search box.”

    According to Dan Marantz, Lead Program Manager for Bing Query Formulation UX, people searches are the second most searched for category, after navigational queries, and account for roughly 10% of queries on Bing.

    “In the milliseconds between keystrokes, Bing lets you narrow down your search by clicking on the correct person,” he says. “If Bing has information on a person, we let you know by displaying it below the search box. In some instances, multiple people share the same name. When this happens, we’ll provide information for the most relevant people with that name, and help you narrow down your search.”

    The new autosuggest feature was co-developed By the Search Technological Center in London.

    The feature appears to be in the process or rolling out.

  • Bing Gets More Tightly Integrated With Facebook

    Bing has added a bit more Facebook integration to its social search features. Now, you can comment on and like Facebook content right from Bing.

    “Bing already lets you view Facebook updates and comments from your friends in sidebar, but now you’ll also be able to add your own Likes and comments to your friends’ Facebook posts directly from Bing,” a Bing spokesperson tells WebProNews. “This is yet another step in Bing’s efforts to make it easier for people to leverage all of the incredible information across the web and content within their social networks to help them spend less time searching and more time doing.”

    “Say you’re a huge Beyoncé fan and are searching Bing to see what she’s up to, such as the latest on her trip to Cuba,” the spokesperson says. “While searching, you see a post in Bing’s sidebar from a Facebook friend who has an extra ticket to the sold out Beyoncé concert this week. With Bing, you can now comment on your friend’s Facebook post in one step, directly in sidebar, and claim the extra ticket. You’ve gone from simply browsing for news to attending the concert in one simple step. With Bing’s social search you can connect with your friends and engage with your social world to get things done – all in one spot.”

    Facebook Comments

    Of course none of this applies to the “Bing it On” challenge, which Microsoft just kicked off a new campaign for. The site, which lets you do side-by-side blind comparisons between Google and Bing results, strips out special features from each search engine, including Bing’s Facebook integration and Google’s Knowledge Graph.

    Bing continues to be a major partner of Facebook’s, also providing the web search results to Facebook’s Graph Search.

  • Microsoft Extends Revenue Guarantee To Yahoo In ‘Search Alliance’

    In a recent financial filing, Yahoo cited that Microsoft extended its revenue guarantee in the two companies’ ongoing “search alliance”. This is a guarantee that Microsoft has so far failed to live up to, but continues to extend, presumably, to keep Yahoo from walking away from the deal, and potentially into the arms of a certain competitor.

    Reuters reports:

    The U.S. revenue-per-search guarantee, which had expired on March 31, will be extended for one year, and took effect on April 1, Yahoo said in its 10Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.

    …

    Extension of the search revenue guarantee marks Yahoo’s first agreement with Microsoft since Marissa Mayer became Chief Executive of Yahoo in July. Mayer, who is seeking to reverse a multi-year decline in Yahoo’s revenue and in its online traffic, has been critical of the Microsoft partnership struck by former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

    Indeed she has. At the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in February, she expressed her disappointment, saying that they need to see monetization working better, “because we know that it can and we’ve seen other competitors in the space illustrate how well it can work.”

    There have been rumors in the past that Yahoo would kill its deal with Microsoft prematurely, but Microsoft has indicated that it would not make it easy for Yahoo to pull out. Of course, there has also been plenty of speculation that Yahoo could try a deal with Google again. Yahoo initially tried to partner with Google, but potential regulatory hurdles led to that falling through and Yahoo settling for Microsoft.

    But that was a long time ago, and under different leadership.

    The Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance could still fall apart.

    “On March 31, because of the failure with RPS, Yahoo potentially could have terminated its deal with Microsoft on February 23, 2015,” explains Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan. “That’s the five year mark into the ten year agreement, where there’s an out for both sides.”

    “That’s still a date to watch, but April 1, 2014 is more important,” he adds. “If Microsoft fails to deliver for a third time, maybe by then, Yahoo will want to move on. Assuming, of course, that US regulatory bodies even allow it to partner with Google.”

    Google has cleared some significant regulatory hurdles since it tried to partner with Yahoo before. It would be interesting to see how such a scenario would develop in the future.

    In semi-related news, Chitika announced a multi-year extension of its advertising agreement with Yahoo.

    “Yahoo! has a proven track record of capitalizing on strong, successful partnerships, helping the organization meet and exceed its business goals,” said Venkat Kolluri, Chitika’s CEO. “Extending and expanding our relationship with Yahoo! reaffirms our commitment to deliver innovative online and mobile ad technology solutions, which will help contribute to the growth of Yahoo!’s search marketplace.”

  • Bing Heads To Google, Kansas

    Bing is at it again with another “Bing it On” challenge. Actually, it’s pretty much the same challenge, but they’re challenging people again.

    Bing says in a blog post, “With the newest version of the Challenge site, in addition to search results, you’ll get to learn about a new homepage every day, rollover video preview and instant translation all on the same site – some of our unique features that give you even more reasons to fall in love with Bing.”

    They’re kicking off a new nationwide campaign. This time they went to Topeka to ask people if they know that most people prefer Bing search results to Google’s.

    “I’m not sure I believe that,” one participant says, before being wowed by the awesomeness that is Bing.

    As you may recall, a few years ago, Topeka temporarily adopted the name “Google” for its city in a campaign to get Google Fiber (which ultimately debuted in Kansas City).

    “In Google, Kansas, you made me a Bing man,” says one person.

    You can try the challenge here. Just remember that the experience is completely different (for both search engines) than when you actually search on Google or Bing, as it strips out key features like Google’s Knowledge Graph and Bing’s social features.

  • Bing Webmaster Tools Gets Geo-Targeting, New Malware Tool

    Microsoft has launched two new features for Bing Webmaster Tools: a new malware tool and geo-targeting.

    If Bing detects that a site is serving malware (either willingly or unwillingly) it will send a notification to the webmaster in Bing Webmaster Tools, as well as alert users before they actually visit the site.

    “The new Malware tool provides information about the malware we detected on the site,” Bing says in a blog post. “Previously some of this information was encompassed in the Crawl Information tool, but with the new Malware tool you not only get access to more details that help you understand the nature of the issue, it also allows webmasters to submit and track a malware re-evaluation request once they have cleaned their site.”

    When a webmaster submits a request, they can immediately track the status and progress right inside the malware tool.

    With geo-targeting, webmasters can provide Bing with info about the intended audience of their site or of a section of their site.

    “Whereas other Webmaster Tools let you geo-target sites only at the site level, Bing Geo-Targeting provides you with a more flexibility: multinational sites do not need to verify each section they want to geo-target separately,” says Bing. “Instead, Bing allows you to define a country affinity for your entire website or for sections of your website from within a single view and from within a single site account.”

    Geo-targeting can be done at the domain level, the subdomain level, the directory level or the page level. Geo-targeting input will be used as one of many signals Bing uses when determining when and where to show your pages to users.

  • Is This The New Bing Logo?

    Microsoft recently presented at a design conference in Norway,and provided a glimpse at some potential new logos for some of its big brands, including: Bing, Skype, Yammer and Xbox.

    The Verge shares two videos from the conference, indicating that the first one is actually two years old (but was shared as part of the presentation). It shows the Bing logo.

    The Verge’s Tom Warren writes:

    At first it seems the clip is simply an old concept, like similar ones Microsoft has experimented with previously, but later in the presentation Simmons reveals design work for the same Bing logo and what appears to be a future Skype or Yammer brand change (see image above). “Other brands are coming along too,” he notes before the reveal. “Bing, Skype, Yammer, Xbox…everything is under development as well.” Both logos fit Microsoft’s new approach to design, with a flattened look and colors that align well with other products.

    So is this Bing logo still on the table? With all the other logo redesigns from Microsoft, it seems like a possibility.

    What do you think of it?

  • Bing Rebrands Bing Business Portal As Bing Places For Business

    Bing announced the launch of Bing Places For Business today. Essentially this is just a rebranding of Bing Business Portal at a new destination: bing.com/places.

    Bing senior product manager Ginny Sandhu says, “We know time is in short supply when you are busy running your business. That’s why at Bing we are always looking for ways to simplify your experience of getting your business online and managing your business reputation on the web. The launch of Bing Places for business is the first of many steps in our effort to provide you with all the tools you need to easily and quickly find local customers online.”

    “Also as part of our drive to simplify the experience we are retiring a few business promotion and management services that were being previously offered,” says Sandhu. “Starting today we will no longer provide the option of creating deals, coupons, QR codes and mobile sites as well as removing the ability to create and print collateral for your business.”

    Speaking of deals, as Bing Deals no longer exists, Bing also announced the launch of Bing Offers (another deals aggregator).

    For Bing Places For Business, users can continue to use the same login information they used for Bing Business Portal. Data will be migrated to the new experience over the next three or four days.

  • Bing Takes Another Swing At The Deals Space

    Bing announced Bing Offers today. This is a searchable collection of local deals on the web, aggregated from a “broad” set of partners.

    Sound familiar? That’s probably because they launched Bing Deals two years ago, another deals aggregator. Apparently that didn’t work because these days that just redirects to Bing.

    Update: A Microsoft spokesperson tells us:

    “Microsoft has aligned all deal offerings under the Bing Offers brand – with a much wider selection of local and national deals presented across multiple channels.

    In order to better serve our customers, we decided to work on creating a richer experience across devices. As part of the experiential rollout of the new Bing Offers experience, people will begin seeing local deals through Bing and Local Scout on Windows Phone 8. Also, the bing.com/offers site is mobile optimized for customers wanting to discover their deals from any of their favorite mobile devices, such as iPhone or Android.”

    So now Bing is at it again with Bing Offers.

    “Bing Offers brings together popular deals from across the web in one convenient place, creating a simple way for people to discover and take advantage of great local deals,” a Bing spokesperson tells WebProNews. “Whether looking for a new restaurant to try or a much needed spa treatment, consumers can use Bing Offers to search and filter one of the largest collections of local deals from leading providers. Additionally, Bing Offers is optimized for tablets, mobile and PCs, so people can find great deals no matter what device they use.”

    Bing Offers

    The features as described by Bing:

    • All your favorite deals in one place: You no longer need to browse through different websites, manage multiple sign-ups or sift-through your inbox. Bing Offers aggregates popular deals across the US to help you discover great deals at the right time and place.
    • Quickly find the deals you are looking for:Search for your favorite deals by using any business name, category or keyword. Not looking for a specific deal? Then filter out irrelevant offers by location or category including: food, activities, health & fitness, beauty, travel, retail & services.
    • Available on any device: The Bing Offers experience works seamlessly across tablets, mobile devices, and PCs, so you can use access great deals regardless of where you are.

    Bing Offers is US-only at this point.

  • FairSearch Doesn’t Like The Way Google Does Thing Bing Does

    As previously reported, the EU has finally released documents clearly stating its concerns with Google’s competitive practices and listing, for the first time, Google’s actual proposals for settlement.

    Ahead of the release, the FairSearch Coalition (a group of Google competitors – including chief rival Microsoft – hellbent on seeing Google’s business regulated by governments) issued a statement indicating it would likely have more suggestions for how Google could go beyond its proposals to make things better for its competitors. Now, the group has put out another statement.

    Thomas Vinje, counsel and spokesman for FairSearch Europe had this to say:

    “FairSearch applauds the Commission for laying out a clear and compelling case that Google is abusing its dominant position by giving its own products preferential treatment in search results. This is an important conclusion that must lead to meaningful remedies. We have always said that the best remedy for consumers and innovation would be to require Google to apply the same policy to search results for its own products as it does to all others.”

    “However, Google’s proposed commitments appear to fall short of ending the preferential treatment at the heart of the Commission’s case based on formal complaints from 17 companies. Google’s own screen shots in its proposal (see p. 30) shows it seeks approval to continue preferential treatment for its own products. We will study the proposal in detail and offer an empirical analysis based on actual tests.”

    Page 30? Okay, let’s take a look:

    Page 30

    Look at that. Google Shopping results right at the top for a search for “dslr camera”. Perhaps they should be doing it the way FairSearch member Microsoft does it:

    Bing shopping

    Oh, wait a minute.

    It’s almost as if a search engine offering its own shopping results for product queries is the industry standard:

    Yahoo Shopping results

  • Bing Truncates SERPs More Aggressively (Until Users Hit The Back Button)

    Bing Truncates SERPs More Aggressively (Until Users Hit The Back Button)

    After some experimenting and monitoring user behavior, Bing has made some changes to the way its shows search results.

    Bing R&D Partner Architect Dr. Ronny Kohavi discussed Bing’s testing and findings in a blog post. Much of the findings seem pretty obvious. Clickthrough rates go down for results that are lower on the page, for example. Things get a little more interesting when users hit the back button, however, and this has influenced Bing’s strategy for showing results.

    “On average, over 50% of users click on the first result on the page,” Kohavi writes. “From there we see a significant drop, with less than 1% of people clicking on the 8th link on the page. The figure below shows the click-through rate dropping from position 3 on, where position 3 could contain an Instant Answer, or the 2ndweb result that was pushed down because there was an Instant Answer above it, etc.”

    BING SERP clickthrough

    “With this insight in mind, we looked for interesting cases where the click-through rate is much higher on lower results,” continues Kohavi. “One interesting case was after a user hits the back button. When users click on a result, then hit the browser back button, they typically look lower on the page. Statistics showed that the click-through rate on lower positions are a factor of five to eight times higher after a back button. This observation led to a change to Bing in the US in late May 2012 so that the SERP initially showed eight algorithmic results, and the page was extended to 12 after a back button. The controlled experiments showed that key metrics improved: users were executing fewer queries per session, pages rendered faster on average, and pagination to page 2, 3, etc. reduced by almost 2%.”

    Now Bing is truncating search results pages more aggressively, showing just the first four elements (which can be either algorithmic results or instant answers), as well as as news results when relevant, and is extending the SERPs after the back button is pushed to 14 algorithmic results. According to Kohavi, this leads to more successful sessions for users, people finding what they’re looking for more quickly, a decline in queries per session, pages rendered faster (on average), and a 5% reduction in pagination.

    The changes were pushed to all Bing users earlier this week (April 22nd, to be exact).

  • Bing Suggests You Search for ‘Sex Games for Kids’ and a Bunch of Other Questionable Queries

    Updated with comment from Microsoft below.

    Like Google, Yahoo, and most other search engines, Bing offers to autocomplete queries in their search box. While Google calls this feature “autocomplete,” Bing calls it “search suggestions.”

    Well, it looks like Bing is suggesting that you search for some pretty disturbing stuff.

    I was pointed in the right direction thanks to a reddit post. “Why don’t you have a seat over there, Bing,” it read, referencing Dateline NBC host Chris Hansen’s famous line on the show To Catch a Predator.

    Ok, I’ll bite. Here’s what Bing’s search suggestions suggest:

    Say what? It appears that Bing is suggesting that I search for “sex games for kids,” and “sex games for kids in bed” and “sex games online for children.” Hm, ok then.

    Digging a little deeper with the questionable queries produced similar results. For instance, here’s what Bing suggests when you search for “sex kids”:

    And here’s a Bing search for “sex child…”:

    Even worse, here are Bing’s suggestions for what I’m sure is one of their (and any search engine’s) most popular single-word queries, “sex”:

    Damnit, Bing.

    Also, changing your SafeSearch settings to strict does nothing to eliminate these results. When you think about it, it would probably look even worse for Bing if it did, because that would indicate that Bing felt that a search suggestion like “sex games for kids in bed” was an appropriate suggestion for a moderate level SafeSearch.

    “Still seeing inappropriate content? SafeSearch uses advanced technology to filter adult content, but it won’t catch everything. If SafeSearch is set to Strict or Moderate and you’re seeing adult content, tell us about it so we can filter it in the future,” says Bing.

    But this isn’t a SafeSearch problem, this is a search suggestions problem. You can turn search suggestions off in your settings, but by default they are on. That means that the average person that pulls up bing.com and searches for “sex g…” sees these questionable suggestions.

    Now, I guess the next big question is whether or not Bing has a responsibility to filter out these search suggestions.

    On one hand you could make the argument that Bing doesn’t have to manually edit which search suggestions it gives for particular queries. The suggestions are clearly based upon popular and recent searches from the Bing community – and if that’s what they’re searching for then hey – let it be.

    On the other hand, Google limits its autocomplete results. Here’s what you’ll see when you search “sex games” on Google:

    And here’s what you see when you search “sex kid”:

    As you know, Google also censors other questionable searches. They won’t give you suggestions for sexual terms like “boobs” or “pussy,” and they won’t even display curse words like “fuck” or “shit” in autocomplete results.

    They also censor any search that has to do with the illegal downloading of copyright protected content. For instance, “game of thrones torrent” won’t autocomplete.

    Over on Bing, it’s a totally different story:

    Bing doesn’t really filter any of the types of searches that Google does. Last year, we pointed out that Bing was suggesting painless ways to kill yourself while Google was displaying the suicide prevention hotline.So, if they’re going with a true hands-off approach to any sort of search suggestion censoring, what’s different about queries about sex games for kids?

    Well, it’s the “c’mon, dude” argument I guess. As in, Bing…c’mon dude. It doesn’t help that instead of “autocomplete,” Bing’s version of the technology is called “search suggestions.” So, when you think about it, Bing is suggesting that you search for “sex kids movies” and “sex games with kids in bed.”

    C’mon, dude.

    I’ve reached out to Bing for comment and will update when I hear back.

    UPDATE:

    As you know, Facebook partners with Bing for their search results. And you can find the same questionable suggestions inside Graph Search results:

    UPDATE 2: A Microsoft spokesperson has given me this:

    “We’re reviewing the guidelines for search suggestions related to this type of query.”

    Well have to see if anything changes.

  • Bing Rolls Out Updates To Windows 8 Apps

    Bing Rolls Out Updates To Windows 8 Apps

    Microsoft announced that it is rolling out updates across its six Bing apps for Windows 8 (News, Finance, Weather, Sports, Maps Travel). The updates focus on personalization.

    Users can now customize the Bing News app to keep track of specific story categories, topics or news sources. In what is likely a play to become your alternative to Google Reader, it also now supports RSS (and offline reading).

    The Maps app now has improved driving, transit and walking directions and “up-to-the-minute” traffic incident notifications. This even includes construction. You can also save places as favorite or pin them to your start screen.

    With the Finance app now includes an updated watch-list, real-time U.S. stock updates and customizable interactive charts.

    The Sports app had added 29 sports leagues bringing the total to 65.

    The Travel app has additional content from Lonely Planet, Frommer’s and Fodor’s.

    The Weather app now has dynamically moving weather maps for cities and regions in satellite, temperature, precipitation, cloud cover and radar layers. Users can also get weather conditions for ski resorts in 24 countries.