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Tag: Bing

  • Google and Apple Renew Search Deal

    Google and Apple Renew Search Deal

    Former Google CEO and current Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt spoke at the All Things Digital D9 conference, and revealed that Google has renewed its search deal with Apple. Google will remain the default search engine on iPhones and iPads.

    There have recently been some questions about whether Apple would stick with Google Maps in the upcoming iOS 5, or abandon it in favor of a technology of its own, but that appears not to be the case. Google Maps will reportedly continue to get featured placement on iOS devices.

    Danny Sullivan, who liveblogged Schmidt’s comments at D9, quotes him as saying, “We have a very, very good partnership,” and that both the search and maps deals have been renewed. He didn’t reveal any more details about the deals.

    The search deal especially, could be critical for Google in keeping Bing from gaining a significant amount of search market share (or at least an even more significant amount than it’s already poised to gain). Bing should be getting some nice boosts from the Windows Phone platform, as well as deals with Nokia and RIM (and watch out if Microsoft ever decides to put a proper browser with Bing as the default search engine on Xbox).

    While Android has been doing incredibly well, Google remaining on the very popular iOS devices matters. Given that Apple is about to introduce the next generation of iOS itself, one can only imagine that a new wave of consumer interest is on the horizon.

    The maps deal matters, as it is simply an extension of search, and obviously an important one on mobile devices. Bing just launched some new streetside view technology for its own Maps service.

    While Google (and Schmidt specifically) has repeatedly referred to Microsoft as its main competitor, Schmidt spoke about what he calls the “gang of four” companies that are dominating in consumer tech. This includes Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook – no Microsoft. When asked by interviewers Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg about Xbox, Schmidt downplayed the wildly popular gaming console, saying that “it’s not a platform at the computational level,” and that Microsoft is still fundamentally about Office and Windows (as quoted by All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka).

    Really? Microsoft’s latest earnings report tells a different story:

    It’s also clear that Xbox is becoming less and less about just gaming. According to Microsoft, 40% of all activity on the Xbox 360 is non-gaming activity, meaning that users are spending nearly half the time on the console watching streaming video. Users can stream movies and music through Zune, which might be getting a rebrand. Again, look out if they simply throw a browser into the mix. I wonder if Microsoft has anything like that.

    It’s very interesting that Schmidt would downplay the significance of the Xbox, given the less-than-stellar launch of Google’s entry into the living room – Google TV.

  • Bing Maps Streetside View Comes with Some New Views

    Bing has launched some changes to its Bing Maps street imagery with Streetside View. “With these updates you can quickly and seamlessly pan the neighborhood, check out a business down the block, or make a ‘u-turn’ to cross the street, among other things,” a Bing representative tells WebProNews “So whether you need to see a straight, flat area in New York, or a steep, winding road in San Francisco, your online mapping experience is more immersive than ever.”

    “These changes represent a significant enhancement for desktop browsers, enabling you to quickly pan up and down the street to see the neighborhood and find businesses,” explains Bing’s Chris Pendleton. “We are doing this by providing street level panoramas so you can take a virtual walk through the streets with a view of locations and landmarks. As you slide the street level imagery sideways, the view of the sidewalk is seamlessly constructed including an overlay of business listings, street names and store fronts.”

    “In the past you explored Streetside imagery by navigating between ‘bubbles,’ or discrete 360 degree views, and moving down the street was accomplished by jumping from bubble to bubble. This works, but makes it difficult for you to get a sense for a larger area like a city block. Moreover, it’s hard to pick out storefronts farther away since you really only see the ones directly perpendicular to your viewpoint with great clarity,” says Pendleton. “This new style, on the other hand, keeps the immersive experience but adds smooth left/right panning navigation that makes it easy to find what’s nearby more quickly. The street flows by as a series of smooth ground-level photographs so now you simply pan up and down the street to see the neighborhood and find what you are looking for.”

    @stefanweitz
    Stefan Weitz    Get up close and personal with that gyro shop – new BIng Maps view: http://binged.it/lIrJDq 4 hours ago via Seesmic Web · powered by @socialditto

    The street map remains above the imagery, so if you get lost in your streetside journey, you shouldn’t have much trouble figuring out where you are. Below the imagery, you will also see an overlay of the names of businesses and bus stops.

  • Getting More Facebook Likes and Search Traffic

    Getting More Facebook Likes and Search Traffic

    Did you know there are small adjustments you can make to your use of Facebook’s Like buttons/social plugins that can have an incredible impact on your traffic?

    Facebook can provide a level of engagement between businesses and consumers that you simply didn’t see much before it was around. Naturally, as a result, Facebook has proven to be an indispensable marketing tool and driver of website traffic. Granted, the content has to be compelling, but you already know that.

    Is Facebook one of your main sources of traffic? Let us know.

    Getting Traffic from Facebook

    Danny Sullivan posted a slew of Facebook Like button/social plugin stats that came directly from Facebook itself. Here are a few of the stands-outs:

    – The average media site integrated with Facebook has seen a 300% increase in referral traffic.

    – Users coming to the NHL.com from Facebook spend 85% more time, read 90% more articles and watch 85% more videos than a non-connected user.

    – ABCNews.com, Washington Post and The Huffington Post are said to have more than doubled their referral traffic from Facebook since adding social plugins.

    – Levi’s saw a 40 times increase in referral traffic from Facebook after implementing the Like button in April 2010 and has maintained those levels since.

    – Outdoor sporting goods retailer Giantnerd.com saw a 100% increase revenue from Facebook within two weeks of adding the Like button.

    – American Eagle added the Like button next to every product on their site and found Facebook referred visitors spent an average of 57% more money than non-Facebook referred visitors

    According to what Facebook told Sullivan, Like buttons get 3 – 5 times more clicks if versions that show thumbnails of friends are used, they allow people to add comments, they appear at both the top and the bottom of content, and they appear near visual content like videos or graphics. He looks at a specific example with Metacafe, which originally had a Like button at the bottom of its videos, but after adding one to the top in addition to it, tripled its number of daily likes and doubled its amount of referral traffic from Facebook.

    That’s a pretty huge impact from such a simple adjustment.

    Sullivan also references the recent Buddy Media report we covered last month, looking at Facebook’s EdgeRank (the basis for the algorithm Facebook uses to determine what shows up in users’ News Feeds), and how to optimize your Facebook activity to get seen in the News Feed more often, which is obviously going to help with traffic. Buddy Media, which in case you’re not familiar with, is a company that’s built a business out of creating Facebook tools for businesses, and counts major brands like Target, Johnson & Johnson, and ABC among its clients.

    In the report, they suggested brands do the following on their Facebook Pages to get in the News Feed more and boost their “EdgeRank”:

    1. Ask questions
    2. Post games and trivia
    3. Interact with fan engagement
    4. Incorporate wall sapplets (polls, coupons, etc.)
    5. Incorporate relevant photos
    6. Relate to current events
    7. Incorporate videos
    8. Post content for time-sensitive campaigns
    9. Include links within posts
    10. Be explicit in your posts

    In terms of getting Facebook referrals, don’t forget about Facebook’s recently launched “send” button, which can drive really targeted traffic.

    Facebook Send Button
    Facebook and Search

    Clearly Facebook itself can be very powerful for driving traffic directly to your content, but it also has the potential to be pretty powerful indirectly through search. It looks like this will only increase as integration gets more mature.

    Of course Bing has ramped up its integration of Facebook. It’s displaying Likes in search results, where applicable. It’s showing actual sites your friends have “liked” (not just individual pieces of content). “Likes” are influencing search rankings in Bing on a personalized basis (and this is a powerful way to crack into the personalized SERP, which is no easy SEO task). Bing is using Facebook data to show “well-liked content” from sites across the web. It’s showing Facebook posts from brands when the brand is searched for. It’s letting users have conversations about some results with Facebook friends (mainly in travel for the time being). Bing has a feature that lets users share shopping lists with friends.

    Facebook Likes in Bing

    Bing uses Facebook in other ways, and will continue to add even more. Bing Director Stefan Weitz said in an interview with Inside Facebook, “It’s more than just Likes now. We think of people as having characteristics and attributes, not just actions. Now we’re considering what other meta data can we use that people will give us access to so we can continue to personalize search.”

    He says 80% of people delay making a purchase online until they can talk to a friend. I’m not entirely sure where he’s getting this information, but 80% is pretty high, and Facebook is the online destination where many, many people have the easiest access of the largest group of their true friends (and family).

    “Core search stuff has been taken care of by intelligent organization,” Weitz said. “But how do people sort through all the links and make a decision? You do all the research, but at the last minute you walk away from the purchase process because you’re not convinced until you get a social recommendation.”

    “Stuff that was previously in your brain is now in a format that machines can read. Friend connections are a new way of thinking about ranking search,” he said. “Meanwhile, humans are creating 5 billion gigabytes of data every two days, and machines are losing their ability to categorize it all. How can PageRank handle a Yfrog image? It probably doesn’t have a title, or caption, or anything else that could help index it. But if a friend Likes it, that’s important.”

    Then there’s Google.

    We’ve talked about Google’s lack of Facebook integration plenty of times, but that’s not to say Google doesn’t use Facebook data at all, and that a healthy Facebook presence can’t help you get more search referrals indirectly.

    In a discussion with Eric Enge, SEO vet Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz said, “Google and Bing both have data deals with Facebook. The Facebook growth team, which is their marketing team, was at SEOmoz a couple of weeks ago and we were talking in-depth. There was NDA stuff I can’t go into, but one thing they noted, that is public, is that Google gets considerably less data about the social graph from Facebook than Bing does. However, they get more than what is just in the open graph API.”

    The Open Graph API itself has some pretty valuable data at the personalized level. It would be very interesting to know more about that “NDA stuff”. Perhaps in time.

    “When you talk about signals, I think Google is able to see deeper into the social graph via Facebook data than any of us can test on our own. Many people have concern around abuse,” said Fishkin. “For example, what if I get ten thousand random people to go Like my page. There are probably very good signals about the authenticity of social sharing that Google is able to get through Facebook, and Bing maybe even more so.”

    While Google may have access to some amount of Facebook data, it is the lack of integration that really hurts it in the relevancy game. Even still, the data isn’t being totally ignored. You can actually look at your “social circle” in the Google Dashboard, and see the ways Google is connecting different people to you – depending on who your friends are, there is likely a fair amount of Facebook connections in the mix.

    For example, Google lists Michael McDonald as one of my “Direct connections from your Google chat buddies and contacts”. It says it is getting his content from a few different sources, including Facebook – that’s because he has his Facebook connected to his Google Profile, and I am friends with him on Facebook. So, theoretically, if Google deems a search result for some query I enter to be relevant, and McDonald has interacted with that content through Facebook, it could show me that, and perhaps make me more likely to gravitate to that particular result, rather than another result on the page. The more Facebook interactions you can get, the better your chances of this happening with consumers would be.

    Google also includes data from Facebook in its realtime search, which is available to users as a search option via the left-panel or sometimes, when Google deems it appropriate, as its own snippet in the regular web SERP.

    If your content appears in Google News, it’s also possible that Facebook shares can help you get into the news snippets on the regular web SERPs when they appear. If you’ll notice that the stories appear here often display something like this “shared by 5+” That number appears to come from the same realtime search data, which includes Facebook. Theoretically, if you get more Facebook shares here, it can increase your chances of getting great SERP position. That’s shares from Facebook Pages, however, which is important to keep in mind.

    “We treat links shared on Facebook fan pages the same as we treat tweeted links,” Google said late last year.

    Then, you have the simple fact that Facebook Pages tend to rank pretty well for brand searches. There’s a good chance that any consumer looking to engage with your brand will look to do so via a Facebook Page, as it offers a clear line of communication. If they “like” the Page while they’re on it, you obviously have a direct line to them anytime you have an update to post (provided you’re able to find your way into their News Feed). That may or may not be a link back to your site.

    It all starts with getting people to engage with your content and share it with their Facebook friends. Find compelling ways to get people to do this with the placement of buttons, and the promotion of your own Facebook presence. If you can do those two things effectively, you’ll be off to a good start. Then, it should simply be a matter of putting out stuff that people actually want to share and engage with.

    What are some ways you keep people engaged with your content via Facebook? Share here.

  • Social Search Is A Matter Of Trust Not Technology

    There’s been a lot of commotion recently about the integration of social signals into the search results of both Bing and Google. Bing has the upper hand with those signals coming from Facebook while Google is still Google, and is still the search engine of choice worldwide, regardless of what signals they have or don’t have.

    My question is not so much about who will win this game. Google is the 800-pound gorilla that Bing has to move in some direction so it can make any progress. That alone is a daunting task. However, add into the mix that Bing actually already delivers better results (in many opinions) on certain searches that go beyond the blue link text results and you can see that this mountain is about more than a better service.

    The problem facing Bing is that no matter what strides they make in product there are not enough people taking a deep enough dive into the engine to be convinced that they should stop trusting Google results. Because in the end, search is about trust.

    This trust element is one that lives within all of us. Trust requires an investment on a person’s part. An investment with something more valuable than money. It’s an investment of some part of that person. It’s more personal than we in this tech-fueled era tend to give credit to.

    It’s this trust issue that makes me wonder just how important social search will actually be. Why? Because taking a cue from someone else about a problem you are trying to solve requires trust. Trust is not something that is easily given by anyone to anyone else. It’s serious business. It can only occur where there is a bond that goes beyond “Hi how are you doing?”

    It seems that Google and Bing are banking on people trusting more readily. The trouble is, that we have watered down the meaning of friend to the point where it is almost unrecognizable to what it was a mere 10 years ago.

    I have a relatively low number of Facebook friends (although I am still above the stated average of 130) but many aren’t more than acquaintances, and that’s with me being very careful about who I accept. As a result, my level of trust with these friends does not come anywhere near the level of the small circle of truly trusted people in my life.

    Back to social search. Google is now making social search a global play, so social signals for me will come from people I may not even know at all. How is that helpful to me or to anyone? Bing is more targeted toward Facebook but, as I stated before, even my Facebook pool of friends is not exactly the most trustworthy source of information for me.

    So, in the end, social search is more about trust than it is about social signals. The term “social signal” is as clinical a term as you can have when talking about relationships, so I have no great expectations that my social media friends will send a great signal.

    As a result, I don’t hold out much hope for social search for someone like me. It may be fun and it might make me see things a bit differently in a particular instance, but it’s not something I will dive into. Why should I? If I want real opinions about things that really impact me, I have a few people that I can have actual conversations with who will help give me more than a signal regarding my needs.

    Social search’s success will be dictated and possibly limited by the level of trust that someone is willing to hand over to a group of friends. Initially, this will be easy for the younger crowd because they will have grown up steeped in this social world. Will it stay that way? No. Because never before in human history has there been more opportunity to abuse trust and it will ultimately make people less trusting than ever.

    Dark view? Maybe, but I know from my 47 years on the planet that trust is something that is earned. When it is handed out to all and not given the right amount of value it will lead to disappointment more often than not. This is just a fact and it will be a hard one for the social Web to learn, but it will. And it will hurt.

    Originally published at Biznology

  • Do Bing’s New Facebook Features Make it a Better Search Engine Than Google?

    Bing has been steadily increasing its integration with Facebook, and while that’s likely far from over, they’ve launched some significant new features. We’ve written plenty about social search in the past, and from the comments we’ve received, it’s clear that there are a lot of people out there who don’t think there is any value in it. Others acknowledge that there might be value there, but still have a hard time finding it. Bing says half of people (based on its own research) say seeing their friends “likes” with search results could help them make better decisions.

    Is there value to having info from your Facebook friends in search results? Comment here.

    Microsoft Corporate Vice President Yusuf Mehdi talks about the company’s line of reasoning on the Bing Search Blog:

    “Research tells us that 90% of people seek advice from family and friends as part of the decision making process. This ‘Friend Effect’ is apparent in most of our decisions and often outweighs other facts because people feel more confident, smarter and safer with the wisdom of their trusted circle. A movie critic may pan the latest summer block buster, but your friends say it’s the feel good movie of the year, so you ignore the critic and go (and wholeheartedly agree). Historically, search hasn’t incorporated this ‘Friend Effect’ – and 80% of people will delay making a decision until they can get a friend’s stamp of approval. This decision delay, or period of time it takes to hunt down a friend for advice, can last anywhere from a few minutes to days, whether you’re waiting for a call back, text, email or tweet.”

    With the new update, users will get more personalized search results on Bing based on the opinions of Facebook friends. You have to be signed into Facebook. “New features make it easier to see what your Facebook friends ‘like’ across the Web, incorporate the collective know-how of the Web into your search results, and begin adding a more conversational aspect to your searches,” says Mehdi.

    What Exactly is Bing Doing?

    • Displaying “likes” from news stories, celebrities, movies, bands, brands, etc. in search results, where applicable
    • Displaying actual sites your friends have “liked” – not just individual pieces of content. Bing says if you’re looking for a TV, and you have a friend that has “liked” overstock.com, you might see that in your results.
    • A very important element of this update is that it is actually influencing the rankings of content (on a personalized basis). Mehdi says, “Bing will surface results, which may typically have been on page three or four, higher in its results based on stuff your friends have liked. And, how often do you go beyond page one of the results?”
    • Bing is using Facebook data to show “well-liked content, including trending topics, articles and Facebook fan pages, from sites across the web”.
    • Bing is showing Facebook posts from brands when the brand is searched for. Search for Avis and you’ll see recent updates from the Avis Facebook page (in theory. I couldn’t get that to actually work).
    • Bing now has a feature that will let you have conversations with Facebook friends who live where you’re traveling.
    • They also recently launched a feature that lets you share shopping lists with friends.
    • When you search for a specific person, Bing will use Facebook to provide location, education, and employment details.
    • A “Travel Wishlist” feature lets you compare trips with Facebook friends, suggest new destinations, and learn more about locations. When you pick a travel destination, Bing will show you friends that live or have lived there.
    • If you “like” a city on Bing, Bing will send deals for flights to that city to your Facebook news feed.

    Turning it on/off

    The beauty of the feature is that if you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it. Just don’t sign into Facebook. It’s as simple as that.

    For the first five times you use Bing in this way, you’ll see a note at the top right of the screen saying that it is using your Facebook friends, and has a link to “learn more” and a “disable’ button. You can always connect to Facebook again under the sign-in menu.

    Will it deliver better search results?

    There are plenty of questions that surround the execution of social search, which is probably why nobody has really gotten it 100% right yet. For example, should Bing be focusing on friends that have similar interests to you rather than your whole body of friends? Perhaps it depends on the query.

    There’s no question that most Facebook users have friends they interact with more and some they don’t even really know that well. Maybe you’re friends with someone you went to middle school with and haven’t talked to since. Without measuring the level of friendship or common interests, can data from these more obscure “friends” really be valuable? If Bing found a way to identify the people you really interact with and/or have common interests beyond just being your Facebook friend, search results could improve for certain queries.

    What’s missing?

    As with some past Bing announcements, the execution doesn’t seem to quite live up to the hype. That doesn’t mean it won’t get better, but the features are not perfect by any means.

    I do notice that “like” information is incomplete. For example, if I search for the band Converge, Bing shows me that I have two friends that like it, when in fact, Facebook shows that I have four friends that like it. This has to improve, because which friends like certain things can make all the difference in the world. This is a critical element of social search.

    Facebook Likes in Bing

    Facebook LIkes in Facebook - Different than Bing

    I think I still prefer the Wajam approach to social search. They add all of the stuff from your friends right at the top, so it’s always easy to distinguish it from the natural results. It’s also easy to get a friend-by-friend break down on any given query, and see which friends have mentioned certain things.

    In fact, that’s a big element still missing in Bing’s experience, as far as I can tell. Conversations happen on Facebook itself. It’s not all just people liking content around the web. My friend that lives in Chicago may have mentioned a great hot dog shop in casual dialog, without “liking” it on the web or “liking” its Facebook page. Will Bing show me that when I search for a place to eat in Chicago?

    If I’m thinking about buying a new album, will it show me the comment my friend made about how much it sucks? Facebook is a treasure trove of data, and while these new features may be an improvement to the experience, there is a lot more that can be done (much of which Wajam, for one, has already made significant strides in).

    Challenging Google

    Google has made no secret of the fact that it considers Microsoft and Bing to be its main competitor. Bing, while it still has a ways to go before it gets into Google territory, has been steadily increasing search market share since it launched. The latest comScore data had both Bing and Yahoo gaining a little ground in April (with Bing of course powering the back-end of Yahoo’s search results).

    Bing has things in motion that should only increase its share significantly. These include deals with Nokia and RIM, which will put Bing as the default search engine in the pockets of a great many devices. While this is only speculation, I still expect Microsoft to eventually integrate Bing into Xbox in a major way, as the web and the living room become more integrated. Google is not shying away from this area, and Microsoft already has a significant edge with its gaming console. The recent follies of the Sony Playstation (the Xbox’s main rival) can’t hurt either.

    Google has been doing social search for quite some time, but really how social is it? How many conversations does it start? How often do the results influence your decisions? There has long been one major hole in Google’s offering, and that is Facebook data. This is simply because most people online that do any kind of social networking use Facebook. If they used Google Buzz, Google would have an enormous edge, but they use Facebook. As long as that’s the case, and Google is not tapping into that, its social-based results simply can’t be as good as they would be otherwise.

    The Facebook Like vs. the Google +1 Button

    Google has of course unveiled its strategy of using friends to influence search results with the +1 button, which is set to be rolled out in the coming weeks. There is a great deal of skepticism around this, however, and Bing has upped the ante. The strategies are similar in that both require friends hitting a button to influence the search rankings of content.

    Where Google is starting from the ground up, Bing is harvesting the data from a very well established system that we know works. Frankly, Google is going to have a hard time topping this.

    For one thing, people aren’t clicking the “like” button with the intent to influence search rankings (at least not the average person, though I suspect we’ll see people trying to game this). They’re clicking it because they use Facebook and they genuinely like things. That works.

    To most users, Google is still a search engine. It’s not where their friends are. Sure, maybe they use all kinds of Google services, but it’s still not their main social network of choice. We’re still waiting for Google to tie this whole social strategy together in a more cohesive way (that’s a whole other conversation) , but until that gets accomplished, the average user is just going to consider Facebook the place where their friends are going to see their “liking”. Who’s going to see their “+1ing”? Are they just going to click that button because they want other people to have a better chance of finding it for some search query that they may or may not ever enter?

    Less of the Same

    All of that said, it might be best that Google and Bing remain significantly different in their strategies. It is a good thing for Bing to differentiate itself more as a search engine. The less alike Bing and Google are, the more options users have. It’s even possible to use both. I know. Crazy, right?

    Google’s Matt Cutts is even encouraging users to check out other search engines like Blekko and DuckDuckGo. “I love when new search engines launch. I think competition is great,” he said in a recent webmaster video. “It keeps us on our toes. It makes sure that we’re doing the right things. I highly encourage people to check out both Blekko and DuckDuckGo. See what you like, see what you don’t like.”

    He has a point about Google “making sure it’s doing the right things”. We’ve certainly seen Google borrow some ideas from Bing in the past. We’ll see if Google and Facebook can ever come to an understanding. Don’t forget, Microsoft is an investor in Facebook.

    From a marketing perspective, Bing needs to find ways to stand out by leveraging its business relationships with Facebook. I wonder if we’ll start seeing more about this in Bing commercials. Microsoft is certainly spending a lot more on marketing Bing than Google is on its search engine. Perhaps that will change if Bing’s market share doesn’t stop growing.

    Which is the better search engine: Google or Bing? Tell us what you think.

  • Bing Teams Up With Facebook for Personalized Results

    Bing Teams Up With Facebook for Personalized Results

    Today, Microsoft’s search engine has announced that its “decision engine” will now be influenced by what they are calling the “friend effect,” basically what is popular with one’s Facebook friends. If you log into Facebook through Bing, you will now receive information on what your friends “like” when viewing search results.

    Not only will the new Bing with Facebook simply show you that your friends like a certain result, but the search engine will use the information is gleans from Facebook to actually modify your search results.

    Here is a detailed description of what the Facebook integration will look like on Bing, courtesy of the official Bing blog:

    “Liked” Results, Answers & Sites

    Instantly see which stories, content and sites your Facebook friends have “liked,” from news stories, celebrities, movies, bands, brands and more. With the “thumbs up” from your friends you can jump right to the stuff that matters the most to you. Bing shows the faces of up to three of your friends that like a search result, offering a visual and virtual seal of approval from your trusted social network.

    Personalized Results

    Bing delivers a more personalized search experience by using the interests shown by your friends. Now you won’t miss potentially interesting information that may have been buried deep within the search results. Bing will surface results, which may typically have been on page three or four, higher in its results based on stuff your friends have liked. And, how often do you go beyond page one of the results?

    Popular Sites

    Bing shows well-liked content, including trending topics, articles and Facebook fan pages, from sites across the web, to help you dig in and quickly find exactly what you’re looking for. Looking for a great recipe? Now when you search for a recipe site, you’ll see what recipes people have liked on that site, allowing you to cut through the clutter and find the perfect recipe for dinner.

    Integration of Social Messages

    Bing not only shows you what your friends like and share online, but also what major brands and companies are saying. For example, when you search for Avis, the answer on Bing will integrate any recent Facebook posts alerting you to a new deal.

    Bing is also integrating Facebook profile search into the engine, so that when you search for a person, Bing will provide a detailed “bio snapshot” of the person based one their Facebook profile.

    Bing is basing this partnership on the idea that recommendations from friends and family are what people want when making decisions. This shift towards social search might even be a bigger deal than it initially looks like on the surface. Bing says that “search remains largely driven by facts and links” and that this Facebook integration means that “it’s time to change that.” This may in fact be the first step in search becoming a truly social experience.

    As they say above, they are surfacing results, possibly from page three or four, to page one based on their popularity with friends. Is this indeed an algorithm change?

    Will you log into Facebook and use Bing’s new social search?

    <br /><a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&#038;vid=243216f7-9941-4f48-a2d0-2065e06a47b5&#038;src=SLPl:embed::uuids&#038;fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Facebook Friends Now Fueling Faster Decisions on Bing">Video: Facebook Friends Now Fueling Faster Decisions on Bing</a>

  • Nokia to Replace Bing Maps Infrastructure?

    As you may know, Microsoft and Nokia signed a deal last month, aimed at creating a “third horse” in the smartphone race (alongside Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms [kind of insulting to RIM, no?]). As part of the deal, the two companies indicated that Nokia Maps would become a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services, and would be integrated with Bing.

    “Maps would be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience,” the press release said.

    That integration might be much bigger than anyone realized, however.

    Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land says he had lunch with a “person with close connections to Nokia,” who told him that Nokia Maps would “effectively replace almost everything that Microsoft had developed over the past several years in terms of the Bing Maps infrastructure”. Sterling writes:

    I said I couldn’t believe Microsoft would agree to swap in Navteq for the guts of its own system. Yet my lunch guest argued that Microsoft’s role would mostly center on the Bing Maps UI — ironically not unlike Yahoo’s relationship to Microsoft search results — everything else would be powered by Nokia.

    And there was another very interesting remark. He asserted that Google’s unwillingness to agree to a co-mingling of Google Maps and Nokia Maps or substitution of Nokia Maps on the back end was one of the sticking points that prevented Nokia and Google from coming to terms.

    Navteq is a GIS data provider, owned by Nokia. It counts plenty of big brands (including Microsoft) among its customers.

    Based on the circumstances, we can only file this one under rumors at this point, but as Sterling points out, Microsoft and Nokia were indeed quite vague on the details about any Map integration resulting from the partnership.

    At this point, it’s unclear what would become of much of the progress Bing Maps has made on its own, and its own integrations – Bing Maps apps, for example. We’ve reached out to the Bing Team for comment, and will follow-up with any additional details.

    Update: Bing simply gave us the following canned response: “Bing Maps has utilized Nokia content for road data, geo-coding and routing services for several years, through Nokia’s Navteq vector data business, relying on the quality of its data for core location services. The Nokia/MS partnership will enable deeper collaboration and an improved experience for our customers in the future.”

  • Can Skype Help Microsoft Beat Google?

    Can Skype Help Microsoft Beat Google?

    You’ve probably heard by now that Microsoft is buying Skype (pending regulatory approval). This is Microsoft’s biggest acquisition to date at $8.5 billion, and Skype’s second acquisition (it’s already been bought and sold by eBay). Since Skype’s release from eBay, it has been quite busy adding features and functionalities, and even making some acquisitions of its own, such as that of live streaming video service Qik.

    Was this acquisition a good idea? Comment here.

    Skype has a reported 663 million registered users and 145 million average connected users. The company recently announced a record of 30 million users online at the same time.

    The deal has enormous implications, not only for Microsoft’s own offerings, but for the industry at large. There are also plenty of concerns. Let’s get to those first.

    Concerns

    Clearly, Skype has a big user base, and users have the right to be worried about what is going to become of their beloved service in the hands of a giant like Microsoft. Especially considering Microsoft’s track record of acquisitions (laid out its graphic nature here).

    Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb brings up some reasonable fears, such as product neglect and malware issues. “Will Skype in 14 years look like Hotmail does today?” he asks. “Malware is already an issue for Skype and of course it’s a well known part of the Microsoft landscape,” he also notes.

    How will it affect use across various platforms? Microsoft says it will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms. Still, this is a little vague, and considering how much head butting goes on between Microsoft and Google, it wouldn’t be an enormous shock to see some issues raised in this area in the future.

    On reassuring the continued support of other platforms, Steve Ballmer said at the press conference, “I said it and I mean it. We will continue to support non-Microsoft platforms.”

    Steve Ballmer Talks Skype

    “We’re one of the companies that has a track record of doing this,” he added. Still, does that mean all platforms?

    The fact that this is such a huge acquisition for Microsoft, however, should be an indication that the company will take it very seriously, as it has so much invested in Skype’s future success.

    Mobile

    Skype, which has more users than Twitter, should help Microsoft on numerous strategic levels. Mobile would be a major one. Skype will support Windows Phone, of course, and while it remains to be seen what kinds of integrations we can expect, there’s little doubt that it will be an integral part of the Microsoft mobile strategy as it tries to gain ground against Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

    Also consider that Microsoft has recently made deals with Nokia and RIM that will see Microsoft services heavily integrated on these companies’ mobile devices. It stands to reason that Skype will play a major role here as well.

    It doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that Microsoft would at some point create a Skype-branded phone.

    The Living Room

    The living room is one area where Microsoft already has a tremendous edge over competitors like Google and Apple. While the jury’s still out on the future success of Google TV and Apple TV, it’s been pretty well established that Microsoft’s Xbox line is a smashing success. Kinect is doing pretty well too. Guess what will be integrated with both of these.

    In its announcement, Microsoft points out its “long-standing focus and investment in real-time communications across its various platforms” including Xbox Live. It also says Skype will support Xbox and Kinect, and will connect Skype users with Xbox Live (in addition to Lync, Outlook and other communities).

    PayPal is also coming to Xbox Live. That can’t hurt either.

    The Enterprise

    Let’s not forget about the implications for businesses. Microsoft says the acquisition will increase accessibility of real-time video and voice communications for enterprise users and generate “new business and revenue opportunities”.

    Plenty of businesses are already using Skype. How many are using Microsoft products? This could be a huge blow to Google, who is aggressively going after the enterprise market with Google Apps, and soon with Chrome OS. Skype may give businesses another reason to stick with MS. Of course it remains to be seen what kinds of integrations we’ll see.

    Competition and Google

    There are plenty of areas where Microsoft and Google compete with one another, and Skype could go a long way in helping Microsoft with maybe all of them. That includes the areas we’ve already discussed – mobile, the living room, and the enterprise. It also includes the communication services Skype provides on its own.

    Google has been doing more and more in this area, whether it be in the form of Google Voice or video chat via Google Talk and Gmail (email being another prime example of where Google and Microsoft already compete). How about live streaming video? Skype recently bought Qik for this, and YouTube recently announced its own YouTube Live (both a viewing destination and a platform for streaming live video).

    YouTube is also doing plenty of other things to cement its position of being THE online video destination. This week, the company announced new partnerships with movie studios, the doubling of its catalog of movie offerings (including new releases), and increased investments in original content from partners. This comes back to the living room discussion, but I’m guessing we will continue to see overlap in the offerings from these two companies here.

    Bing

    And then there’s Bing. What in the world could Skype possibly have to do with search? Well, everything we’ve talked about up until now is all about Microsoft expanding its presence and user base. The more people using Microsoft products (now including Skype), the more opportunities Microsoft has to push Bing on people. The more businesses using Microsoft products, the more opportunities for Bing integration. The more consumers using Microsoft in the living room (where Microsoft is already heavily pushing Bing via television commercials), the more opportunities for Microsoft to push Bing on users through products.

    We’ve had the mobile conversation more than once – both when Microsoft announced its partnership with Nokia, and its partnership with RIM. They both equate to Bing search being the default search on more mobile devices, and getting Bing into more consumers’ hands (literally). These things can only help Bing’s continued growth.

    Last week, we asked, “Will Bing catch Google?“. The Skype acquisition can’t hurt. Much of this is simply about opportunity. We don’t know all of the details about Microsoft’s plans for Skype, but there’s no question that there is an incredible amount of possibilities that can help give the company some much-needed boosts.

    Kirkpatrick brings up another good point about developer opportunities, making the case that “social graph and address books, presence, file sharing, Instant Messaging, [and] mobile” elements of Skype are all things developers salivate over, and that with Microsoft behind it, developers could get a great deal more access to build more useful applications and integrations on top of Skype.

    The social element was played up in the press conference about the acquisition.

    The Facebook Factor

    As long as we’re talking about how much of a strategic buy this could turn out to be for Microsoft, in its ongoing competition with Google, let’s not leave out the implications for Facebook – another company that not only has a partnership with Microsoft, but increasingly competes with Google in numerous areas.

    Om Malik brings up some good points about how the acquisition relates to Google’s competition with Facebook, which he says could be the biggest winner of the deal.

    “The Palo Alto-based social networking giant had little or no chance of buying Skype. Had it been public, it would have been a different story. With Microsoft, it gets the best of both worlds — it gets access to Skype assets (Microsoft is an investor in Facebook) and it gets to keep Skype away from Google,” he says. “Facebook needs Skype badly. Among other things, it needs to use Skype’s peer-to-peer network to offer video and voice services to the users of Facebook Chat. If the company had to use conventional methods and offer voice and video service to its 600 million plus customers, the cost and overhead of operating the infrastructure would be prohibitive.”

    “Facebook can also help Skype get more customers for its SkypeOut service, and it can have folks use Facebook Credits to pay for Skype minutes,” he adds. “Skype and Facebook are working on a joint announcement and you can expect it shortly.”

    Also, while Google continues to struggle in social, Skype makes Microsoft more social by default, with or without Facebook (MUCH more so with any Facebook integration).

    The New York Times says Microsoft analysts see the acquisition as a move to block Google from “gaining greater ground in Internet communications”. Google was said to have been in talks with Skype about a potential partnership. It may or may not be the entire basis for the acquisition, but it’s not hard to see this logic.

    To put it simply, it’s all about products that people use, and Microsoft just added another major one to its list.

    Google is just kicking off its Google I/O developer event. It will be interesting to see what all news comes out of this, and how it might pertain to this discussion. Also keep in mind the ongling regulatory scrutiny over competition that Google continues to attract.

    Do you think the acquisition will be good for Microsoft? Good for Skype? Tell us what you think.

  • Microsoft adCenter Getting Some New Local Features

    Microsoft adCenter Getting Some New Local Features

    Microsoft adCenter plans to launch new local features for Bing in the U.S. aimed at helping businesses reach local audiences. These include radius targeting for search ads, new local search ad attributes, and “Bing VIsion”.

    “These new mobile local ad offerings build off of the momentum generated from the recent Bing Business Portal and Bing Mobile Deals announcements,” says Microsoft’s Dennis Glavin.

    The Radius Targeting will let advertisers target a specific segment within a 5-100 mile radius of the address displayed in the ad copy.

    The new attributes let advertisers define certain things in their ad, such as the merchant’s address or phone number. “Those attributes will be served to local queries and within advertisements, both on the PC and mobile,” says Glavin. “Local Ad Attributes will begin rolling out in adCenter in the second half of the calendar year, depending upon publisher and mobile device.”

    “Bing Vision taps into the idea that once a customer is inside a store, the brand’s goal is to get them to ‘marry’ its product,” he says. “Bing Vision utilizes the camera on a customer’s smartphone to provide the customer with additional product information, reviews and prices. The system is easy: all a customer has to do is take a photo of the product and Bing Vision will detect the text, QR Scanner or MS Tag, returning the product results – helping the customer further engage and hopefully purchase the product.”

    As far as scannable codes go, WebProNews recently spoke with Mike Wehrs, former Chief of the Mobile Marketing Association (and a Microsoft Vet), who now runs ScanBuy. He brought up some good point about using open formats vs. proprietary formats (like Microsoft’s Tag) Watch the interview:

    Bing Vision is already available on the Bing iPhone app, and the company says it will be available on other platforms later this year.

  • Will Bing Catch Google?

    Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced today that Bing will be the default search on all BlackBerry devices – not only for the web, but at the OS level.

    Can Bing catch Google in search market share? Tell us what you think.

    On Bing’s Search Blog, Director Matt Dahlin writes:

    Central to this collaboration, , Blackberry devices will use Bing as the preferred search provider in the browser, and Bing will be the default search and map application for new devices presented to mobile operators, both in the United States and internationally. Also, effective today Bing will be the preferred search and maps applications with regular, featured placement and promotion in the BlackBerry App World carousel.

    Bing is also now shipping as the default search experience, and map app, for the newly released BlackBerry Playbook. Together, we’ll also market and promote the strength of our joint offerings as “Making better decisions with Bing on BlackBerry.”

    These new experiences highlight how the mobile landscape is changing. Devices are becoming sensors that can provide real-time access to information to help people quickly complete tasks on the go. We’re going to see a convergence of search, commerce, social and location-centric services where Bing will provide the intelligence and the organizing layer in the cloud that connects a user’s intent with action, helping people be more productive.

    For us, this goes way beyond a “search box” and links that rank URLs representing a set of web documents. For us, it’s about finding real tools that help real people get things done. Bing is about fast decisions, combining the topical graph with your social graph – as well as the geospatial graph – to connect the real world and the digital universe like never before. Doing this on mobile devices of all sorts is incredibly important to this effort, and our work with RIM will help both companies do great things for customers.

    @stefanweitz
    Stefan Weitz    Yet more places to get Bing on more devices: http://tnw.co/jrO9cI 59 minutes ago via Seesmic Web · powered by @socialditto

    It seems that Bing’s presence as a search engine is just growing and growing. In addition to this BlackBerry news, Microsoft recently announced a partnership with Nokia, which will also see Bing (as well as the company’s Windows Phone OS) coming to all Nokia smartphones and tablets. These two deals alone should be absolutely huge for getting Bing as the default search for more users, particularly as the smartphone and tablet markets continue to grow.

    The Nokia deal was just signed a couple weeks ago. “Microsoft will provide Bing search services across the Nokia device portfolio as well as contributing strength in productivity, advertising, gaming, social media and a variety of other services,” the announcement said. “The combination of navigation with advertising and search will enable better monetization of Nokia’s navigation assets and completely new forms of advertising revenue.”

    Nokia, while a force in the mobile industry for years, has yet to really make its mark in smartphones and tablets. RIM, on the other hand is firmly entrenched already. There has been talk about falling interest in the BlackBerry brand, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. BlackBerry is still huge, it has a new tablet to compete with the iPad in the BlackBerry PlayBook, and RIM just made a slew of new announcements, including new BlackBerry Bold smartphones, a new version of the BlackBerry OS, and improvements to enterprise/business use of BlackBerry devices.

    What if Apple were to drop Google and go with Bing as the default search for iOS? That would be an exceptionally huge blow to Google, and it’s no secret that Apple and Google have developed an increasingly rocky relationship since Google entered the mobile OS game with Android (not to mention Chrome OS). Last fall, it was revealed that Apple and Google had extended their search partnership, but will this last forever?

    As Bing expands its presence, things haven’t been completely rosy for Google. Sure, the company made the top of the list in reputation, according to new Harris poll, but Google still faces ongoing scrutiny over competitive practices (a new probe is expected to launch soon from the Federal Trade Commission, which some say could effectively turn Google into the new Microsoft, if it goes against Google).

    Complaints have been rampant, with regards to the quality of Google’s search results, though they have gone to great lengths in recent months to address this with things like the Panda update, a new domain blocking feature, and the unveiling of the +1 button. But frankly, the average is probably not too aware. The average user is not looking to see what Google’s doing to improve its results. They’re seeing the results that they see, and if they’re not satisfied, that “Bing” brand that they keep seeing on TV may start to creep into their heads.

    That’s another thing. Microsoft has been spending a ton of money on marketing Bing since it was launched, especially on television. Google does very little to market its search engine. Sure, they had that Super Bowl spot, but when was the last time you saw a Google commercial?

    And speaking of television, that’s not the only advantage Microsoft has here. In the battle for the living room, Microsoft clearly has a giant edge over Google thanks to the success of Xbox. Google TV has not had much success yet. If Microsoft were to make the Xbox more web-friendly, and it seems only logical that they will sooner or later, Bing will no doubt be heavily emphasized.

    What’s something else that people seem to be gravitating to almost as much as TV? Just ask fans of All My Children and One Life to Live. It’s Facebook. Guess who has a search partnership with Facebook. Bing not only provides web search results to Facebook, but continues to integrate Facebook into its own search engine in various ways. Friends are an important relevancy signal, and for many people, Facebook is where there real friends are. As I’ve said repeatedly, Google’s search results will never be as good as they could be without Facebook integration. I know not all of you are convinced on that one, but I still believe it’s a crucial factor in the advancement in search (at least as long as Facebook is the dominant social network).

    As you now, Bing is also powering Yahoo, which was Google’s main rival in search not that long ago. Google has said repeatedly that Bing is its main competitor.

    Bing says its share of the search market has grown every month since it launched. Many signs point to it growing even more in the coming months. Google still has many redeeming qualities, and I will still not go so far as to say it’s not the best search engine. I still tend to go to Google first for most of my search needs.. That said, I’m not blind to the events unfolding around it.

    Do you think Bing has a good chance of catching up to Google in search market share? Comment here.

  • Bing Shopping Gets Redesign

    Bing has redesigned Bing Shopping, putting articles and categories next to top searches, popular products, and brands. The idea is that people will be able to research products more easily before purchasing.

    There are shopping articles that provide information about trends, that will be added week-to-week, according to Bing.

    They’ve also made changes to the results pages. “Now when you search for a product, you will see larger images at the top of the screen,” explains Bing Shopping Sr Program Manager Larry Colagiovanni. “The refinements on the left hand side of the page also received improvements. Now you can insert your own price match in the left rail. If you’re looking for inspiration, we also display similar searches that others are doing.”

    Bing Shopping results page redesign

    “So you can quickly find out information about a product, we have added the ability to hover over an item to see more about it, including average reviews and its top attributes,” he adds. “While you are shopping, we made it easy to add a product to your shopping list. You can share your shopping list on Facebook to get feedback from your friends or compare with other products on your ‘wish’ list.”

    In addition, users can view the merchants that sell any given product, along with specs and product reviews, with an added “filmstrip” with the original results, for easier comparison.

    Bing has been growing in search market share every month since its launch, according to Director Stefan Weitz. Microsoft released its quarterly earnings today, and they’re pretty good. Here’s the part of the announcement relevant to Bing:

    Online Services Division revenue grew 14% year-over-year primarily driven by increases in search revenue. Bing’s US search share increased to 13.9% this quarter.

    Google, on the other hand, fell short of expectations with their Q1 earnings report a couple weeks ago.

    What do you think of the redesign to Bing Shopping?

  • Microsoft Reports Strong Q3 Results, Thanks Xbox

    Microsoft has released its report on third-quarter earnings today, and they show record results.

    Q3 revenue is reported at $16.43 for the quarter which ended on March 31st.  This is a 13% increase year-over-year.  More results:

    Operating income, net income, and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $5.71 billion, $5.23 billion, and $0.61 per share, which represented increases of 10%, 31%, and 36%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period. Diluted earnings per share included a $0.05 tax benefit primarily related to an agreement with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to settle a portion of their audit of tax years 2004 to 2006.

    “We delivered strong financial results despite a mixed PC environment, which demonstrates the strength and breadth of our businesses,” said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “Consumers are purchasing Office 2010, Xbox and Kinect at tremendous rates, and businesses of all sizes are purchasing Microsoft platforms and applications.”

    Categorically, Microsoft delivered revenue increases in each division.  On the heels of Office 2010, Microsoft Business Division revenue grew 21% year-over-year.  Server & Tools revenue grew 11& year-over-year.  They report that Windows 7 remains the fastest selling OS in history with a very impressive 350 million licenses sold.

    On the back of Bing’s expansion to 13.9% of the search share, Microsoft’s Online Services Division revenue grew 14% year-over-year.

    The real star, however, is the Entertainment & Devices Division.  Fueled by Kinect sales, Xbox console sales and Xbox Live subscriptions, it grew 60% year-over-year.  They say that the Kinect is the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history.

    Microsoft isn’t the only company to post strong quarter earnings.  Yesterday, e-commerce giant eBay posted very strong Q1 earnings of $2.5 billion in net revenue.

    And with the PlayStation Network looking like it’ll be down for another week, maybe frustrated PS3 users will jump ship and switch to Xbox, who knows.  I guess we will see when Microsoft reports its Q4 earnings on July 21st. 

  • Microsoft Nokia Deal Signed, Bing in More Hands Next Year

    Back in February, Microsoft and Nokia announced a partnership, which would see the two companies working together to take on Apple and Google in the smartphone market. At the time, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop it’s now a “three-horse race.”

    The companies have now signed their agreement, ahead of schedule, allowing both parties to begin engaging with operators, developers, and other partners on the endeavor.

    “At the highest level, we have entered into a win-win partnership,” said Elop. “It is the complementary nature of our assets, and the overall competitiveness of that combined offering, that is the foundation of our relationship.”

    The “third horse” will involve Windows Phone-based Nokia devices, and will include a new ecosystem to accompany that (yet another ecosystem for developers to worry about).

    “Our agreement is good for the industry,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “Together, Nokia and Microsoft will innovate with greater speed, and provide enhanced opportunities for consumers and our partners to share in the success of our ecosystem.”

    It will also involve the integration of numerous Microsoft offerings into Nokia phones. These include Office, Xbox, Maps, and of course Bing.

    “Microsoft will provide Bing search services across the Nokia device portfolio as well as contributing strength in productivity, advertising, gaming, social media and a variety of other services,” the newest announcement says. “The combination of navigation with advertising and search will enable better monetization of Nokia’s navigation assets and completely new forms of advertising revenue.”

    Bing’s share of the search market has grown every month since its launch. This partnership could be huge for expanding it even further.

    When Microsoft announced Windows Phone 7, we suggested that it could be one of Google’s biggest threats, and one of Bing’s best chances for significant growth. Lackluster sales of the initial devices kind of played that notion down a bit, but the Nokia deal could breathe new life into it.

    “Mobile is critical to Bing’s success, and providing the best possible search experience on Windows Phone 7 is an important part of our strategy,” a Microsoft spokesperson told us in November.

    Bing also has the Facebook partnership working to its advantage, both providing web results in Facebook, and providing Bing users with Facebook integration from the search engine – an area Google continues to shy away from (Blekko is also deepening its Facebook integration, by the way).

    It will be interesting to see how the social media element of the Microsoft/Nokia partnership plays out as well.

    The companies intend to ship devices next year.

  • Can Google Ignore Facebook And Stay On Top?

    Google has been doing a lot to make search more social, but the search giant continues to leave out your friends’ Facebook content from its results. Sure, you may find people from your social circle (as defined by Google) in the mix, but hundreds of millions of people use Facebook, and many of them use it as their primary social network – the one where they communicate the most with their closest friends and family.

    Do you think Facebook integration would improve the Google experience? Tell us what you think.

    Facebook data can improve search for a variety of reasons tied to that point. One reason is that of recommendations, even if they’re inadvertent. People say positive and negative things about experiences they have with brands, places, movies, music, food, etc. This occurs naturally all the time. This information – based on people you know (and know whether or not you trust or care about their opinion) can provide a great deal of relevance to a query.

    Another reason is photos. Imagine how nice it would be to see photos from your friends turn up for relevant queries. Let’s say you want to take a vacation in Maui. You could search for pictures of Maui on Google and find some beautiful shots no doubt. How nice would it be to see your friends’ honeymoon pictures in the mix? See the fun things they did while they were there. You may not have even known they went there, but if their photos surfaced in your Google search, you would know, and possibly be led to discuss their experience with them.

    Videos are another reason. People are posting more and more videos on Facebook – both original and links to interesting or entertaining things they’ve found on the web. In relevant cases, wouldn’t it be nice to see videos from your friends when they make sense. You can apply the Maui example here as well. Or let’s say you’re searching for “TV on the Radio” videos, but not one specifically. Maybe you could see some specific ones that your friends thought were particularly cool.

    But Google does not include this kind of personalized Facebook data in its search results, and there is nothing indicating that this is on the way either. Bing uses more personalized Facebook data, but not in this rich of an experience.

    Meanwhile, third-parties are busy finding solutions to problems like this. Greplin and Wajam are two examples. Granted, neither of these services offer the perfect solution to create the kind of rich search experience I’m describing, but they’re making strides where the big search engines are slow to adapt to user needs.

    For example, Wajam launched a new feature for its browser plugins, which allow you to control which Twitter and Facebook friends you want to be included in your search results.

    Manage friends on Wajam

    There’s a good chance you don’t in fact care about the opinion of everybody you’re friends with on Facebook. Just because you knew somebody in High School doesn’t mean you care about their opinions on Mexican food. However, your friend that provides an awesome cuisine every time you go to their house for a dinner party might carry more weight.

    On the other hand, you never know what you’re going to be searching for down the road, and whose words may have some hidden and unexpected relevance. Maybe you are friends with someone who has the complete opposite taste in movies as you. If they say a movie sucks, maybe you’ll be more inclined to watch it.

    That’s beside the point.

    The point is that Facebook content has the potential to make search better when integrated in interesting and relevant ways. This is one reason why Facebook itself could be a dangerous match for Google, if it ever decided to start taking search more seriously.

    To some, the notion may seem odd, but it didn’t take long for a new-ish search engine called Bing to gain significant ground in the search market. And Facebook’s user-base is enormous. A solid marketing budget can go a long way, as Microsoft proved with Bing. Then of course there’s that whole Bing-Facebook partnership thing. Bing powers Facebook’s web results and Bing will no doubt find new ways to integrate Facebook into its own experience.

    Earlier this week, Experian Hitwise research came out, finding that Google has lost ground to the Bing-Yahoo alliance six months in a row in the U.S.

    Does Google need to give users personalized Facebook results? Share your thoughts.

  • Experian Hitwise: Google On Six-Month Losing Streak

    Experian Hitwise: Google On Six-Month Losing Streak

    As Larry Page goes about reorganizing Google to his liking, he might do well to transfer a few extra engineers to the search team. Google’s search engine of course continues to be dominant in the U.S., but new data from Experian Hitwise suggests it’s lost ground to the Bing-Yahoo alliance six months in a row.

    Trace the decline for yourself if you like. Google had a market share of 72.15 percent in September, according to Experian Hitwise. Then that fell to 70.68 percent in October, and it’s been dropping ever since. The latest report pegs Google’s market share at 64.42 percent.

    Meanwhile, Bing and Yahoo have been posting gains on a regular basis, and Experian Hitwise believes their combined market share exceeded 30.00 percent in March (making for a month-over-month gain of 5.37 percent).

    That’s an impressive achievement. What’s more, Experian Hitwise stated, “Yahoo! Search and Bing achieved the highest success rates in March 2011. This means that for both search engines, more than 80 percent of searches executed resulted in a visit to a Website. Google achieved a success rate of 66 percent.”

    All of this data seems bound to attract the attention (and money) of at least a few advertisers. It’s possible there will be a small snowball effect among users, too, as more people become curious about Bing.

    Again, we’re not going to pretend this pattern marks the end of Google’s dominance. Fans are sure to find the trend worrying, though, and it’ll be very interesting to see how long the slide continues.

  • Bing for iPad App Launched

    Bing has released a new iPad app. The main theme, Bing appears to be looking to get across with it is that of more content from the homepage – or at least easier access to it.

    “Since launching, Bing has been focused on helping people stop searching and start deciding – regardless of where they are,” a representative for Bing tells WebProNews. “The Bing for iPad app goes beyond the traditional search experience, offering a new visually rich way to search the Web.”

    “The experience is designed specifically to capture the fluid and intuitive nature of touch on a large, high resolution screen – allowing you to quickly browse news, movies, weather, local business listing and much more,” he adds. “And, you can do it all with the swipe of a finger – no more back button.”

    <br /><a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&#038;vid=bf79720b-2fce-4f05-b880-21793cd62bd9&#038;src=SLPl:embed:&#038;fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Touch and Decide: Introducing Bing for iPad">Video: Touch and Decide: Introducing Bing for iPad</a>

    The app’s opening page shows the local weather, top news, maps, movies in theaters, top trends and stock market news. There is also a “Trends” icon that lets you click on a picture and get the latest headlines, including breaking news, gossip, fashion, sports news, etc.

    For Maps, you can click the Map icon on the homepage to find your exact location and what’s nearby.

    The free Bing for iPad app is available for download today in the Apple App Store.

  • Google Antitrust Investigation May Be On FTC’s Agenda

    Google’s proposed acquisition of ITA Software, and whether or not the Department of Justice approves it, may have additional ramifications for Google and government regulations.

    According to a report from Bloomberg, the company is being considered for a “broad antitrust investigation” by the Federal Trade Commission, but before moving forward, the FTC is waiting to see what the DoJ does.

    Is Google anti-competitive? Share your thoughts.

    The report suggests that such an investigation by the FTC could be on par with the famous Microsoft probe from a decade ago, which is widely thought to have greatly held Microsoft back in many areas of tech (which ironically, could have helped Google become the giant it has become).

    Microsoft is part of the FairSearch Coalition, an organization mainly made up of travel sites that have banded together to push for the ITA Software acquisition to be blocked.

    Last week, Microsoft SVP and General Counsel Brad Smith wrote on an official Microsoft Blog, a lengthy spiel about the company’s “concerns about search in Europe,” as it filed a complaint with the European Commission. He wrote:

    At the outset, we should be among the first to compliment Google for its genuine innovations, of which there have been many over the past decade.  As the only viable search competitor to Google in the U.S. and much of Europe, we respect their engineering prowess and competitive drive.  Google has done much to advance its laudable mission to “organize the world’s information,” but we’re concerned by a broadening pattern of conduct aimed at stopping anyone else from creating a competitive alternative.

    We’ve therefore decided to join a large and growing number of companies registering their concerns about the European search market. By the European Commission’s own reckoning, Google has about 95 percent of the search market in Europe.  This contrasts with the United States, where Microsoft serves about a quarter of Americans’ search needs either directly through Bing or through our partnership with Yahoo!.

    At Microsoft we’ve shown that we’re prepared to work hard and invest literally billions of dollars annually to offer Bing, a search service that many now regard as the most innovative available.  But, hard work and innovation need a fair and competitive marketplace in which to thrive, and twice the Department of Justice has intervened to thwart Google’s unlawful conduct from impeding fair competition.  In 2008 the DOJ moved to file suit against Google for its unlawful attempt to tie up and set search advertising prices at Yahoo!, causing Google to back down.  And last year the DOJ formally objected to Google’s efforts to monopolize book content, a position affirmed by a federal district court in New York just last week.  Unfortunately, even this has not stopped the spread by Google of new and disconcerting practices in the United States.

    He went on to say that the situation is worse in Europe than it is in the U.S.

    Interestingly enough, Microsoft actually continues to gain search market share with each passing month. Bing has a ways to go before it gets to Google’s level, but Bing has said that its market share has actually grown every month since its launch. Bing also powers search on Yahoo and Facebook, two of Google’s other big competitors.

    A decision from the DoJ on Google’s acquisition of ITA Software is expected soon. Meanwhile, Google is hardly slowing down in its offerings.

    Last week, Google announced the +1 button, which would appear to be the company’s version of the Facebook “like” button. As you know, Facebook has basically managed to take over the web in some regards with this button and other social plugins. If the +1 button sees similar success, it could only help to keep people using Google for search.

    Of course it remains to be seen if the +1 button will be a success or a bust, but you have to wonder if Bing’s plotting a “Bing it” button or something.

    Is Google playing fair? Is Microsoft right? Tell us what you think.

  • The Bing Opportunity: Be the Anti-Google

    The Bing Opportunity: Be the Anti-Google

    I have had several discussions over the past few weeks with Stefan Weitz, director of search for Bing, and Andy Chu, director of product management, Bing for mobile, about some pretty cool things on the horizon for Bing. We can’t say any more than that now, but it will be fun to follow. My conversations have been eye-opening to say the least and, as a result, I think that Bing could actually put a dent in what they refer to as “the Google habit.”

    As I bet Stefan would attest, I am a bit opinionated about this whole local Internet space. So rather than grouse about it, I am going to outline my thoughts on just how Bing could make some serious progress in the search space. So, here goes.

    Background

    Google is the dominant player in the search space and they have been for more than a decade now. We know what they can do (automate everything and get a finger in every pie you can imagine) and what they can’t do (marketing—unless you are in Portland, OR—and customer service). They have jumped out to a ridiculous lead in the mobile search space (97 or so percent market share) and they are working to put the SMB, local Internet marketing space together with their mix of Google Place Pages, Hotpot, and Latitude.

    All that being said, they appear to be doing this the way Google always does things. They are putting their head down, plowing forward, listening very little to the end user, and just assuming that because they are who they are, that the SMB will “get it.” I think they are wrong and that’s where Bing can get some serious traction.

    Bing’s Opportunity

    In simple terms, Bing’s opportunity exists in becoming the anti-Google. My discussions with Weitz and Chu show that there is considerable promise on the product side of Bing.

    They have adopted a partner mentality in order to get a lot of their search results to reflect more in-depth information. They have partnered with Kayak for travel and with FanSnap for sports events and ticket information. According to Weitz, 30% of Bing searches now deliver information that is outside the “blue text link” result that many of us have grown so accustomed to.

    There is also the obvious social side of the coin as well, because Bing actually appears to have a better connection to the social graph for search results through their investment in Facebook and the resulting relationship. Now, don’t get me wrong, that relationship seems to be far from perfect, but it’s better than where Google is in the social arms race.

    Overall, Bing is positioned to make a dent in Google. I am being realistic in that I don’t think they will ever overtake Google, but they can make serious inroads in search and mobile.

    How Would They Do It?

    Here is the where the rubber meets the road and I wonder if Bing has the chops or even the nerve to do what is necessary to really make an impact in the world of search, especially at the critical SMB level. My recommendations are written as if I were speaking to Bing directly.

    If you are going to lose money, lose it doing something that will move the needle. Microsoft’s online efforts are a tremendous drag on overall profits for the company because it loses money hand over fist. This is done because they know they have an uphill battle AND it is one that is worth fighting. It can’t stay that way forever, though.

    Spending $100 million on a general branding campaign is a good start but it’s not where the win occurs. The win occurs when you sit across the desk from the SMBs of the world, shake their hands, and find out what they need. The win comes when you educate the SMBs about the Internet space as a whole. The win comes when you help them person to person.

    So spend the money you have wisely by investing in the human side of the Internet. Hire people to be city managers. Give them a more than fair wage plus the chance to earn commission based on reasonable metrics like number of verified business accounts in the portal and other things. Let them earn the right to hire more sales people and be entrepreneurial in their market but with the backing of a Goliath like Microsoft.

    Invest in people to take the message to the street level and to evangelize. Now you are acting like the anti-Google, and you are doing something different that impacts actual human beings. People like being treated like real flesh-and-blood and not some algorithmic function.

    Oh, and on a very simple note: There should be a “Find Us on Bing” sticker in every storefront of every business in the country. Now that’s advertising, but it can only happen through relationships, which take people and a lot of money and hard work. You’ve got the money now, so spend it wisely on those who can do the hard work. Be the anti-Google who uses people and not the algorithm to change the marketplace.

    Invest in more people who do actual live customer support. What if Bing could tell the human story of hiring hundreds of dedicated customer service representatives who are well-trained and fairly paid. No minimum wage phone picker-uppers. Hire just-out-of-school business degree-holders who are interested in this stuff, and let them show you what they’ve got.

    This story could be incredible. While still in the stifling grip of a recession and the supposed “jobless recovery,” what if Microsoft advertised that they were hiring people in the United States whose sole purpose was to talk to the heart of the real economy—Main Street, USA—about getting their businesses in shape to do the right kind of business online? It’s PR gold, and oh by the way, it would work to get real business, not just a happy face story.

    For the foreseeable future, there are enough older business owners who do not see the world of communication as a digital-only process. This is going to be the case for at least 20 more years. In that time, this group will age out and give way to the younger generation who is comfortable with the interactive way of life.

    In the meantime, business will get done and many of this older (dare I say forgotten) crowd are the ones with established businesses and the financial wherewithal to have endured storms and to understand where and when to spend precious resources.

    If Bing would help this group move forward, that would go a LONG way to breaking the Google habit and creating more opportunity for all involved.

    Stop worrying about what Google is doing. Being the anti-Google will require something that is different than Google and not mere mimicry. Right now, Bing is doing a good job delivering search results with actionable options. This already trumps much of the Google search experience, but not enough people know about it.

    Google won’t be stopped, but they can be “right-sized.” This is strange for me because honestly, I love Google. As a small business person myself, they do a lot for me, from e-mail and Google Docs to so much more. I am not interested in seeing them fall and become nothing. Quite the contrary. I believe that all ships rise with a rising tide, but right now, though, Google has not been challenged enough in the search game to stay sharp. That’s where Bing has a chance to improve the online space for everyone.

    Bing has to step up and become a serious threat to Google, so that the Internet as a whole can improve. All these other search engine wannabes like Blekko and Wolfram Alpha all want to make the world safe from bad searches, but they don’t have the resources that Bing has. That will be limit their success. And Yahoo? Let’s just say that Bing needs to lead this race, and if Yahoo gets a lift, so be it. But don’t expect it.

    I realize that this is a bit long and it is a bit heavy-handed but it’s time. There is so much more to be examined in this scenario, but I think that if Bing would take the opportunity to be the anti-Google that there is “gold in them thar hills!” And honestly, if Bing started making money in search, I bet we would all start making more money because that means there is competition and options and hope.

    Do I think Bing can be the anti-Google? I think they certainly have the potential, but my question is do they have the guts? Time will tell and I hope this gets very interesting, very quickly because if not, we could find ourselves stuck in a Google habit that will work but could be so much better if there were company (or better yet A company) to make us all get better.

    Your thoughts?

    Originally published on Biznology

  • Bing Director Reflects On Google Results “Copying” Ordeal

    As previously reported, Bing’s Duane Forrester and Google’s Matt Cutts spoke on a panel at SXSW about search rankings, and they didn’t even talk about the Google/Bing ordeal when Google accused Bing of copying results, and Bing accused Google of click fraud.

    Cutts and Bings’ Harry Shum had gotten into something of a heated exchange on the day that story broke, but things seemed much more civil this time around. Elsewhere at SXSW, however, the subject did come up in a WebProNews interview with Bing Director Stefan Weitz.

    “I think it’s pretty much done,” Weitz said of the ordeal. “Here’s the thing. It was a strange day for me, honestly. I’ll be honest. You wake up, and see that you’re copying results.”

    “I was down in the bay when it happened, so I talked to my engineers up North, and they were really bummed,” he said. “Really demoralized a little bit. I said…’what’s happening?’ We started looking at it, and really what it was at the end was Google proved something that we said we did do anyway, which is look at user-opted-in clickstream data to figure out how to rank results.”

     

     

    “It makes tons of sense,” he continued. “We think it’s a great way to do it. To say that we’re copying was prima facie false frankly. It just isn’t academically accurate…but it was a good headline, so good for them.”

    “But no, look…I think everyone knows in fact they use clickstream data as well. We all use it for different things. It’s just one of those things that we’re [going] to continue to focus on, ‘how do you make the results better for the user?’ There are a number of ways to do this. Clickstream data is one of the thousand ways we actually do this.”

    Google has said bluntly that it “absolutely does not use search activity on other search engines to influence” its search results.

    Bing’s “thousand” number is also one that Forrester referenced on the panel with Cutts. This compares to Google’s “over 200” signals.

    “But we’re really focusing on that and not so much focusing on 20 engineers sitting around their houses, submitting false click reports to Microsoft over the course of a month,” Weitz told WebProNews. “Good espionage. It’s a good…I wish I had written a novel. It would’ve been great…I could’ve just retired on my novel royalties, but instead, here I am at SXSW doing search.”

    “At the end, we’re all just kind of a bunch of geeks, and everyone across the inudstry actually is just trying to push the envelope as fast and as far, and has responsibly as we can…at the end, we’re just a bunch of dorks.”

    It may be “pretty much done,” but Bing has managed to grow its share of the market each month since its launch, and Google still considers Microsoft its main competitor.

  • Bing Expands Twitter, Facebook Integration

    Bing has released a couple new social search feature, utilizing Twitter and Facebook in new ways.

    First off, Bing has started adding tweets into Bing News. “Awhile back we introduced Bing social which lets you plunge into the real-time tweet stream to uncover the latest updates on the Web,” Bing says. “This week we took it a step further by integrating some of this real time social data into Bing news.”

    You can see a realtime feed of tweets in the right hand column for additional news or updates related to whatever keywords you’re searching for. Want the latest on Groupon? You can get the traditional news articles and blog posts along with Groupon-related tweets as they roll in.

    Bing News with Tweets
    “As we’ve seen with the tragedy in Japan or political turmoil in the Middle East, real people are relaying timely and compelling items not captured by traditional outlets,” says Bing. “Bing news now lets you compare and assess authoritative news analysis alongside real-time citizen journalists so you can decide which content sources you want to use.”

    As far as the new Facebook integration, they’ve rolled out a new Facebook share option on results for movies, TV shows, actors, bands, and artists.

    Bing Movies Shareable on FacebookBing has been finding more ways to integrate with Facebook – one area where Google continues to do very little. There is a lot of potential for Facebook data to make search results more relevant, but moves like this also help to promote Bing itself.

    Bing’s market share has grown every month since its launch, according to the company.

  • Bing Mobile Site Upgraded, Bing Maps Gets More Malls

    Bing has launched a handful of new features for its mobile site at m.bing.com. These include updates to image search, transit/directions, shopping, weather, movies, and app search.

    Bing has added transit directions, along with the duration of the trip based on walking, transit, and traffic info. Real-time transit info is available for Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and LA.

    Weather on Bing Mobile

    Image search is faster and smoother, and shopping results have been updated. “Get your shopping questions answered faster with the new re-organized shopping experience designed to make it easier for you to get your shopping questions answered, comparison shop, and discover product details and user reviews while on the go,” says Andy Chu, Director of Product Management Bing for Mobile.

    Bing runs down the new features in the following two videos:

    <br /><a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&#038;vid=22de5e2d-a70e-412b-adbf-51b0f507fecf&#038;src=SLPl:embed:&#038;fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="The Bing for Mobile Browse Experience Gets Even Better">Video: The Bing for Mobile Browse Experience Gets Even Better</a>

    <br /><a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&#038;vid=df7beb2a-af58-4526-9f70-7a21d67c7f2d&#038;src=SLPl:embed:&#038;fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="Bing for Mobile Browse Experience Gets Even Better">Video: Bing for Mobile Browse Experience Gets Even Better</a>

    If you search for movies, they are now organized by time and nearest theater, and include reviews, synopsis, trailers, etc.

    Movies on Bing Mobile

    Weather autosuggest and instant answer features have been added to the search bar. The Weather tab has also been updated with four forecast views.

    Weather on Bing Mobile

    If you use m.bing.com on an iPhone, you can search for apps.

    Bing App Search on Mobile

    Separately, Bing Maps now has the nine largest shopping malls in the U.S. mapped out, bringing the total number of malls to 148. Bing announced the addition of malls to Bing Maps in December.

    Bing Mall Maps

    “For most of our mall maps, you can see parking, ATMs, entrances, as well as many other mall services,” says the Bing Maps team. “Additionally, when searching on Bing Maps for a certain mall or store within that mall, you will be shown a ‘mall map’ link in the search results contact card.”

    The nine largest malls, by the way, are: Mall of America (MN), South Coast Plaza (CA), Woodfield Shopping Center (IL), King of Prussia Mall (PA), Millcreek Mall (PA), Del Amo Fashion Center (CA), Houston Galleria (TX), Roosevelt Field (NY), and Tysons Corner Center (VA).