WebProNews

Tag: Bing

  • Experian Hitwise Records Another Bing Bump In December

    Last month, Bing employees got a present of sorts, only this wasn’t the type of thing a person can stuff under a tree or into an envelope.  New data from Experian Hitwise instead indicates that Bing’s share of the search market rose by five percent between November and December.

    That’s significant on its own, considering how well and how long Google’s dominated the field.  As an added bonus: Yahoo’s share of the search market stayed rock-steady, meaning the Bing-Yahoo team increased its standing as a whole.

    Also – while this is more speculative – it may be necessary to consider that December is a month when many people have time off.  So folks could have been showing a personal preference for Bing, even if they previously used another search engine while at school or work.

    Anyway, to move onto a different subject, Experian Hitwise said in a statement, "Bing and Yahoo! Search achieved the highest success rates in December 2010, meaning that for both search engines, 81 percent of searches executed resulted in a visit to a Website.  Google achieved a success rate of 65 percent, up 1 percent over the previous month."

    It looks like Google has some work to do if it intends to keep Bing from increasing its market share even more.

  • Bing Adds Enhanced Auto Search Results

    Bing has added a new feature to its search results in enhanced auto results, which show information about automobiles right on the search results pages. The Bing Team writes:

    Now you can search for your favorite car and Bing will assemble all of the important information (price, Fuel Economy, user rating, listings in your area) as well as quick links to additional information right within the search result.

    Simply enter in the make and model and Bing autos will pull together everything you need to research in one place. You use the filters in the left rail to narrow down your search by model, price, year or comparable vehicle.

    Bing Auto Results

    You can see the feature in action in a video shown here, or you can simply go to Bing and try it out. I find that for some queries, you have to add a year to get the results to come up immediately, though if you leave it off, you can still get to the results by clicking one of the options (which contains a year) in the left rail. 

    The feature is in line with other recently launched Bing features, such as those for sports tickets and TV listings. The feature really falls in line with Bing’s whole "Decision Engine" philosophy it launched with from the beginning – providing answers directly in search results without providing the need to click through to other sites to get the info.

    The auto results provide info from MSN Autos, and when you click through on the links within these results, that is where you will be taken.

  • Bing Secures Place In Hyundai’s Connected Vehicle Program

    Bing is, in both a figurative and literal sense, on a roll this week.  First came word that Toyota’s new in-car infotainment system will feature Bing Maps and Bing for Mobile, and now, it seems a new product from Hyundai called Blue Link will do much the same thing.

    Bing partnered with Hyundai and ATX (which deals in connected vehicle technology) in order to make this happen, and an official statement explained, "Through [Blue Link], Hyundai drivers can access via voice activation location-based and dynamic content supplied by Bing, including points of interest, addresses, restaurant ratings, gas prices, weather and more."

    Then the statement continued, "ATX will also provide Hyundai drivers with access to Bing Maps through a highly customized Hyundai website, which allows the driver to personalize with dynamic content that can be sent to the vehicle.  ATX also relies on Bing mapping tools at its response centers, where specialists are trained to provide drivers with real-time, location-specific guidance or emergency assistance."

    So, together with lots of Toyota owners, new Hyundai owners will get a chance to become much more familiar with Bing’s offerings.  That could translate to increased Bing usage when they park their cars and head indoors.

    Blue Link will first become available on the well-reviewed Hyundai Sonata and the highly anticipated (but yet-to-be-unveiled) Hyundai Veloster.

    It should be interesting to see how the product’s received and what kind of adoption rate occurs.

  • Bing Integrates Local TV Listings

    Every evening, tens of millions of people enter their homes, set down their keys, and waste little time in turning on the TV.  Bing’s taken a good shot at becoming part of their lives, then, by integrating local TV listings into its regular search results.

    To be clear: this is not Bing’s answer to Google TV.  Then again, given how Google TV has failed to find a lot of fans, that’s probably a good thing.

    A post on the Bing Search Blog instead explained, "If you are one of those people who watch TV on an actual TV, we’re pulling in guide information to help you easily find what’s on in your area from your service provider, so you can make sure you are on the couch or setting your DVR to catch your favorite shows."

    A whole lot of geographic regions should be covered, too, as over 2,000 TV listings are supposed to be part of the effort.

    The picture below should give you a little more information about how the feature works (sorry for the blurriness), and there’s also a video if you’re interested.

    This may not be the greatest thing Microsoft’s ever done – many folks will be aware of when their favorite shows air and/or be used to consulting another guide – but the upgrade’s a definite way of increasing Bing’s usefulness.

  • Bing Announces Ties To New Toyota System

    Ford’s SYNC, an advanced in-car "connectivity system" that allows users to play music, get directions, and make phone calls, has earned rave reviews for years.  Now, Toyota’s announced its own take on the concept – dubbed Entune – and it looks like Bing will play a key role.

    Whereas SYNC boasts ties to Google Maps, a Microsoft representative explained in an email to WebProNews, "When Entune launches later this year, Bing for Mobile and Bing Maps will be featured as one of several immediately accessible apps, giving drivers access to more than 16 million points of interest."

    The representative then continued, "Entune offers advanced conversational voice recognition and integrated mobile apps, allowing drivers to search for a destination, point of interest or restaurant and have the information and directions seamlessly delivered to the navigation system from Bing."

    This is something owners are sure to take advantage of on a regular basis.  It’s then possible that, after parking their Entune-equipped cars, they’ll be more likely to visit Bing the next time they’re in front of a computer.

    There is the question of pricing and adoption, of course.  Toyota hasn’t yet announced whether Entune will cost $200 or $2,000, and it’s possible a lot of shoppers will leave the option box unchecked.

    Still, with a price tag of $395, SYNC has found its way into 3 million vehicles since late 2007, so as long as Entune remains competitive, it’s likely that a lot of Corolla, Camry, and Prius owners will soon start getting better acquainted with Bing.

  • Yahoo-to-Microsoft Ad Transition Period Drawing to a Close

    The deadline for Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers to transition their campaigns to Microsoft’s adCenter is approaching. You’ve had ample time to do, but there are no doubt some procrastinators out there. 

    "Given what a busy time of year this is for everyone, both personally and professionally, you may have the feeling that there’s something you’re supposed to do, but haven’t yet. Did you forget something?" asks Microsoft’s Ricky Poole. 

    "With all of the holiday hustle and bustle, I wanted to take a minute to remind any of you in the US and Canada who may still have campaigns in Yahoo! Search Marketing that the transition tool will be closing on January 5, 2011," he adds. "If you have not yet transitioned your PPC accounts from Yahoo! to adCenter, after January 5th you will need to do so manually through exporting and importing your campaigns."

    Yahoo/MIcrosoft transition period coming to end

    Yahoo and Microsoft completed the search transition in the U.S. and Canada in October. Microsoft even extended its adCenter support hours during the transition. 

    If you still have questions about the transition, you should be able to find your answers here. 

  • Bing Launches Destination Pages for Cities

    Bing Launches Destination Pages for Cities

    Bing has launched “Destination Pages” for city searches. If you go to a city’s page, you will find information about events, weather, flights, news, etc. related to that city.  You can find them by simply searching on Bing for a city and clicking the "Destinations" tab. 

    "The new feature assembles all of the relevant information about a destination on one page so you can research a city before you go," explains  David Lindheimer of Bing Travel.   "The top things you need to plan your trip – including flight information, a list of hotels in the area, popular attractions, local events, local news, civic photos, a map and a weather overview – are now in one place."

    "Click into each of the sections to see a full list or gallery relevant to the city," says Lindheimer. "If you’re searching for a local city, Bing can recognize that you’re close and serve up results accordingly.  Let’s say you’re thinking of travelling to Miami this winter.  Type Miami, FL into the search box, and click ‘Explore City’ to check out the destination city."

    Like Bing’s recently launched Artist Pages for musician info, these Destination Pages could probably use a bit of work. For example, the one for our hometown Lexington, KY appears to have good info at first glance (and it does have some good info), but you will also strangely find a listing on the left-hand side for "Castles". 

    Interestingly enough, while we do have a Castle pretty close to the airport, Bing has four listings under Castle, and they appear to all be castles in Italy, with the one we actually do have not present. 

    Bing Destination Pages

    In all fairness, we do have White Castle and Castle Jewelry locations, but those aren’t appearing in the listings either. 

    Still, Bing’s Destination Pages do appear to be valid if you’re looking for flight info, maps, news, events or weather. There are additional useful links presented in the left-hand panel as well. 

    The pages are available for over 3,000 cities around the world. The content, Bing says, is contextual, based on user location.

  • Can Bing Take on Google With These New Features?

    Bing introduced a handful of new features. The one that will likely catch the most interest is the extension of its recent announcement regarding Facebook. Now, Bing will start showing you which of your Facebook friends have liked search results as they appear in your searches. 

    Are "likes" from your friends sprinkled into search results enough to get you to use Bing? Let us know.

    Social (Facebook)

    "Starting today, if your search results include a specific link that has also been ‘liked’ by someone in your Facebook network the link will be highlighted as ‘Liked’ within Bing," Microsoft’s Bing team explains. "This gets especially interesting for a query like ‘Xbox’ where my friend ‘Liked’ the ‘Kinect’ site and while our algorithms didn’t feel it was relevant enough to make it the ‘answer’ we reference above, we are still able to indicate that my friend liked that link that happened to show up within the results."

    This will be one clear advantage that Bing has over Google in terms of regular web search. Google has done a lot involving delivering social results, but Facebook data are THE social results that matter most – at least as long as Facebook is the dominant social site that it is today. With people constantly "liking" content all over the web, this can be a great indicator of relevance on a personalized level. It’s going to catch your attention when you notice your friend appear in the search results. 

    Facebook Like information on Bing results

    Bing has been running a similar feature in search results for several weeks, including likes from places like CitySearch, but there should be a much more broad set of potential results that will include "like" info now. It appears the feature may still be rolling out, so if you don’t see the "liked" results, you’re not the only one. I do get a message about it when I search with Bing, but after some testing, I’m clearly not getting these results. 

    For example, as illustrated by Bing here, I should see when my friend has "liked" a movie on IMDB underneath the IMDB result for that movie on Bing. I have tested this with a specific movie that I made sure one of my friends had "liked" and that "like" did not appear under the result. 

    Sports Tickets

    Bing has also added sports ticket info from FanSnap directly into the search experience, so users can view ticket results from 57 ticket companies, see ticket selection and price ranges, find the best ticket prices, and access a "view-from-seat" feature. 

    Bing Ticket Info

    Image Search

    Bing has also made changes to how it presents and organizes image search results. "The first thing you will notice is our new Instant Answer that organizes a rich collage of images directly into the main results page," Bing explains. "Once you click through to the ‘images’ page you will notice that we’ve populated the tabs with the most common search queries associated with a given image."

    "Instead of making you qualify that you’re looking for (Casablanca, Morocco or Casablanca, the movie), we have organized the tabs so that one simple click gets you to what you’re looking for," Bing adds.

    Bing Image Organization

    Local 

    For local search, Bing has added interior views, enhanced OpenTable integration for restaurants, real-time transit and Streetside for Mobile. Bing has partnered with EveryScape Eats, which provides imagery of restaurant interiors. These can be accessed by clicking "step inside" on Bing Local details pages (it utilzes Microsoft’s Silverlight). For now, it includes about 5,000 restaurants, mostly in Boston, but the company will add locations and cities over time. We’ll see if they expand beyond restaurants. Google has already been experimenting with taking pictures inside businesses. 

    Additionally, Bing users can access local details pages for restaurants that are signed up with OpenTable and search for available reservations from Bing itself. 

    Bing Utilizes OpenTable

    Bing Mobile on the iPhone now has "up-to-the-minute" data for transit agencies (in Seattle, Boston, and San Francisco so far), and Streetside – Bing’s eqivalent of Google’s Streetview is available on Bing Mobile now.  Bing has also made adjustments to its map style and a bunch of other updates to its iPhone and Andriod apps.

    Will This All Help Bing Increase Its Market Share?

    As we’ve discussed in the past, Bing has a lot of things that could work in its favor in terms of helping it grow its search market share, and some of these new features (namely the Facebook likes) won’t hurt. The company also introduced some Facebook sharing features for Shopping Search a couple weeks ago.

    Will the new features help Bing grow its market share? Tell us what you think.

  • Experian Hitwise Marks Progress Of Bing-Yahoo Partnership

    It can be a bit of a balancing act when reports concerning the search market come out; if comScore, Experian Hitwise, and Nielsen all say different things, it’s embarrassing to have three contradictory headlines.  New numbers from Experian Hitwise tend to agree with yesterday’s comScore stats in asserting that November was a good month for Bing, however.

    comScore said Google’s market share went down, Yahoo’s went down, and Bing’s went up.  Experian Hitwise found that Google’s share went down, Yahoo’s went up, and Bing’s also increased a bit.

    More specifically, Google’s share decreased from 70.68 percent to 70.10 percent between October and November, according to the newer report.  Yahoo’s share rose from 14.72 percent to 15.17 percent, and Bing eked out enough of a gain to expand its market share from 10.04 percent to 10.10 percent.

    That puts the Bing-Yahoo alliance up in comparison to Google, which is an important achievement for the two organizations.

    Experian Hitwise also observed in a statement, "Yahoo! Search and Bing achieved the highest success rates in November 2010, meaning that for both search engines, 81 percent of searches executed resulted in a visit to a Website.  Google achieved a success rate of 65 percent, up 5 percent over the previous month.  The share of unsuccessful searches highlights the opportunity for both the search engines and marketers to evaluate the search engine result pages to ensure that searchers are finding the information they are seeking."

    For simplicity’s sake, let’s hope the Nielsen report more or less agrees with these findings.

  • Bing Gains On Yahoo, Google In November

    Microsoft employees should know that setting off fireworks would be neither seasonally appropriate nor entirely in proportion to the small search gains Bing may have seen last month.  But a new comScore report indicates that Bing did indeed see its share of the search market increase in November, and that’s all the more significant since Google and Yahoo saw their shares go down.

    Let’s start at the top of the search pile.  According to comScore, Google’s share decreased by the smallest measurable amount, dropping from 66.3 percent to 66.2 percent.  Then Yahoo’s share fell by the same amount, sending it from 16.5 percent to 16.4 percent (although 0.1 percent of course means more to Yahoo than Google).

    That brings us to Bing.  comScore’s stats indicate Bing’s share of the search market rose from 11.5 percent in October to 11.8 percent in November, making for a not-inconsiderable gain of 2.6 percent month-over-month.

    Bing logoThat’s pretty impressive by itself.  Also, it puts the Bing-Yahoo partnership up in November, meaning Bing isn’t just stealing users away from its new associate.

    Anyway, credit for the stats goes to JP Morgan’s Imran Khan and Dan Frommer, since comScore hasn’t actually released the data on its own just yet.

  • Bing Adds Shopping Mall Maps to Local Results

    Bing is now including Bing shopping mall directory maps in Bing Maps. 

    "Have you ever driven to a mall, parked at one of the big department stores, then discovered the store you needed to go to was on the other side of the mall? What about experiencing the frustration of not knowing where in the mall is the store you need and the mall directory is nowhere in sight? And with malls being extra busy now that we’re in holiday season, we’ll take anything we can get to help us get in, get out, and avoid the crowds," said Bing Maps Product Manager Brian Hendricks. 

    Bing Mall Maps

    "You can use these mall maps to figure out where the right place to park is and map out your mall excursion so you don’t spend precious time walking around," says Hendricks.

    Bing Mall Maps

    Users can find the mall maps by clicking "Mall Map" within Bing Local results. 

    So far, Bing only has maps for malls in Seattle, Boston, and New York  metro areas, but they will continue add more regularly. 

  • Report: Brand Perception Suffers in 2010 for Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace

    WebProNews received some interesting findings from YouGov BrandIndex, indicating that it has not been a good year for public perception of social media brands (which in this case includes Google, Yahoo, Bing, and AOL, in addition to more obvious brands like Facebook and MySpace).

    "2010 was a tough year for public perception of the top social media companies — Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and MySpace all suffered lower positive perception by the end of the year," a spokesperson for YouGov BrandIndex tells us. "AOL was the only major brand to actually have a better ‘buzz’ score by the end of the year than in January, but the company is still seen more negatively than positively."

    "Bing lost just a little ground over the course of the year, making them an even proposition," he adds.

    YouGov BrandIndex looks at brand perception of social media players

    The scores are compiled simply by subtracting negative feedback from positive, with  a zero meaning equal positive and negative feedback. The scores are measured based on the firm’s "buzz score" which asks respondents the question: "If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, was it positive or negative?"

    YouGov BrandIndex interviews 5,000 people each weekday from what it calls "a representative US population sample," with more than 1.2 million interviews per year.

    Clearly there are other significant players in the social media space that are absent from this list. Twitter, is obviously missing. It would be interesting to see how it has been perceived throughout the year compared to the other brands. 

    "One interesting tale in the chart: on January 1, 2010, AOL and MySpace were pretty much at the same spot in negative perception territory," the spokesperson points out. "After March, the two companies took different paths — AOL modestly rose and hung in there, while MySpace stumbled, went back up briefly during their fall relaunch, and then plummeted down worse than ever. MySpace began the year at -9.5 and they’re now at -15.2. The best score MySpace has had since September 2007 was November 5, 2008, when it reached -3.1." 

    That’s about the time when TechCrunch reported that MySpace’s month-old MyAds product was a $50 million business. 

    Other highlights YouGov BrandIndex points to are as follows:

    – Google was rocking at 44 in early January and stayed around there until the end of April, when it began a long slide that brought it down to 32.9 at the end of September. It regained ground up to 36, where it stays today, not returning near its January 1st high. That 32.9 score at the end of September was Google’s lowest buzz score in three years.

    – Yahoo started at 30, drifted down a few points over the course of several months until around Labor Day, and then really accelerated, losing several points until early December, where it is now 21.6.

    – Facebook took the most dramatic journey with its privacy and usability controversies. Virtually tied with Yahoo on January 1st at 30, it hovered in the high 20’s until the end of April, and then the bottom just dropped out, hitting a low of 10.3 on July 7th. Facebook crawled back up to 17.7 on August 12th, went a couple of more points to 19.6 at the end of September, and is now back at 15.7. The Facebook low of 10.3 on July 7th was its lowest score since Christmas of 2008.

    – Bing remained steady all year at around 12, and then began shaving through October, where it is now 9.6. Really a small drop in the scheme of things.

    – AOL is the only company here that ended up with a higher score now than where it began, albeit in negative perception territory (but not deep). On January 1st, they were -7.5 and they’re now -4.3. Worth noting that along the way, they took a stumble that began at the end of June that brought them down on August 17th to -10.5 and then recovered to its present -4.3 range in mid-October. AOL is currently at its best buzz score since September 2007.

    Studies like these must be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s not hard to believe that public perception of some of these brand suffered given all the privacy stories in the news over the course of the year.  

  • Bing Shopping Gets Improved Product Category Navigation

    Bing has made added some enhancements to Bing Shopping with the goal of making it easier for people to browse merchandise by category and sub-category, or as Bing describes it, by "browsing visual aisles like you would in the real-world". 

    I don’t know if it’s quite the same as walking through a brick and mortar store, but it does seem to be easier to browse merchandise at a more specific category level. "Bing shopping now makes it easier to browse with product images and easy-to-use filters that let you browse across thousands of different categories," Bing says. 

    In the navigation column on the left, users will see lists of product categories. "Whether you’re looking to browse by style, price, brand or type, we’ve got you covered," Bing says. It would be nice if size was included for things like shoes and clothing, but that appears to be missing (at least in the searches I conducted). 

    Still, the new set-up is pretty helpful, and certainly an improvement. 

    Bing Shopping Gets Better Category Navigation

    This isn’t the only enhancement Bing has made to Bing Shopping this week. They also added the addition of shareable shopping lists that allow user to show their Facebook friends what they’re thinking about buying, and ask for feedback. Another practical use is to share a Christmas list with family. 

    If you want to see a demo of how the new category navigation works, you can see a video on Bing’s blog here, but it’s pretty self-explanatory, and you’ll probably get more out of just messing around with it yourself. 

  • Google & Bing Are Looking at Links on Twitter & Facebook for Organic Ranking

    Search and social go well together, and the search engines are finding more and more ways to use them together. In fact, the right combinations of these two elements could eventually dictate who has the most useful tools for users. 

    It’s become more and more clear over time that having a strong social presence is helpful in building a strong search presence for a variety of reasons, but it’s not been so clear, just how the search engines have looked at things like Twitter and Facebook profiles when it comes to organic search ranking. 

    Should social media be considered in search ranking? Tell us what you think. 

    Search Engine Land Chief Danny Sullivan posted an important article about this very topic, with some rare and surprisingly direct answers from both Google and Bing. While, neither exactly gave away their respective secret sauces, it would appear that they have set some things straight. 

    Google

    Google reportedly uses when an article is retweeted or referenced in Twitter as a signal in organic and news rankings (even though links on Twitter are nofollowed). They also use it to enhance the news universal results (based on how many people share an article). 

    Google "computes and uses author quality" for when someone tweets. When Sullivan asked if they calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on who tweets it, Google Responded, "Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the ‘Top links’ section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search."

    Google says it treats links shared on Facebook Fan pages the same way as tweeted links, but they have no personal Facebook wall data. Authority for Facebook Pages is also treated like Twitter. 

    So, the more authoritative the crowd sharing links to your content, the better. Not that different than PageRank. 

    Bing

    When it comes to Twitter, Bing tells Sullivan it also looks at social authority of users and more specifically, looks at how many people they follow and how many follow them, adding that this can add "a little weight" to a listing in regular search results (though it carries more in Bing’s separate Social Search). Bing decides when links should carry more weight based on the person who tweets it. 

    As far as Facebook, Bing currently looks at links shared on Facebook that are marked as being shared to "everyone" and those from Fan Pages. "We can tell if something is of quality on Facbook by leveraging Twitter," as Sullivan paraphrases Bing’s response. "If the same link is shared in both places, it’s more likely to be legitimate."

    Bing does not use its new Facebook data in ordinary web search…yet.

    On a related note, Bing is finding other interesting ways to utilize Facebook with search.

    Bing Shopping Facebook integration

    So, clearly it pays to tweet and build a credible Twitter presence. This means gaining a significant following in number, but also getting authoritative users to follow you (and hopefully retweet your links). This would appear to be good for plain old fashioned organic rankings as well as other supplemental search results. More importantly, it pays to create good content that will attract authoritative Twitterers to share it with others. 

    These things of course pay anyway, but it’s nice to know that they actually do have an effect on search rankings as well. 

    It’s not surprising that Twitter is currently playing a more important role in to search engine ranking than Facebook, simply because Twitter is public by default. Facebook is much more walled, meaning that most of the good Facebook data is private. Though it will be interesting to see what happens when Bing does integrate its newly acquired Facebook into its regular search offerings. 

    This wall of Facebook’s is also a factor into why Facebook could potentially unleash its own legitimate search engine. It’s got a search feature now of course, but there is a great deal of potential for them to do a whole lot more and really get under Google’s skin. More on that here. 

    Sullivan provides more background and context around the search engines’ social signals, as well as the full with both Bing and Google, and details about the Twitter Firehose’s lack of nofollow.

    With the information Sullivan has gotten out of Google and Bing, will you focus more on social media? Comment here. 

  • Bing Supplants Google As Conduit Partner

    Bing Supplants Google As Conduit Partner

    Conduit – an organization that powers apps for more than 260,000 Web publishers – has been a partner of Google’s for four of the six years the smaller company’s existed.  Big changes are underway, however, as Conduit has picked Bing to act as a partner going forward.

    Ronen Shilo, Conduit’s founder and CEO, wrote this morning on the corporate blog, "Today I’d like to announce the next step in our journey – we have entered into a partnership with Microsoft which we believe will significantly improve our offering to publishers, accelerating the growth of Conduit’s massive network."

    Shilo then continued, "Both companies are highly driven by improving the user experience, and as such, see a strong alignment in our long-term strategies and are looking forward to a mutually successful partnership."

    This counts as a significant achievement for Bing, even setting aside the symbolic replacing-Google angle.  That’s because Conduit’s connections with publishers put it in touch with around 200 million individuals, meaning the deal should raise Bing’s profile quite a bit.

    Then, if all goes well, other companies might choose to follow Conduit’s lead.

    Unfortunately, the exact terms of the Bing-Conduit arrangement haven’t been disclosed, so details related to timeframes and financial components remain hazy.

    Hat tip goes to Kara Swisher.

  • Bing Adds Facebook Integration to Shopping Search Results

    Bing has added Facebook integration to Bing Shopping in the form of shopping lists. Users can select items they are thinking about buying, add them to a list, and post that list to their Facebook Wall from Bing, and ask their friends what they should buy. 

    "We’ve taken this notion that you make decisions online using your social network," Bing says. "And we said how can we take that experience….and make it part of the core search experience that you can use to get stuff done faster."

    On every product on Bing shopping, there is an "Add to List" button. When clicked, a shopping list module will appear on the bottom left of the screen with a button to share that list anytime.

    Bing Shopping Facebook integration

    Once you share it and go to your Facebook Wall, it’s treated like any other shared link on Facebook, and you can add additional messages, such as, "Would you go with the Jordans or the Reebok Pumps?" or "Which Xbox should I get?"
    Bing Shopping Facebook integration

    "Now you can enlist the help of your favorite gadget geek," says Bing. "Give your friends and family a nudge by publishing a wish-list to your Facebook Wall."

    The Search-Meets-Social Trend

    This is just one of the latest in a continuing trend of social media features added to search. In fact, Google is also currently experimenting with a new section in Google News for "most shared" that appears to show activity on social networks like Twitter (ht: Mashall Kirkpatrick). 

    The new Bing feature, however, is basically just sharing search results more than it is tapping into existing friend data that’s out there, which is more what another Facebook/Bing announcement was about. 

    It’s an interesting time for search-meets-social because there are so many possibilities for creating effective integrations. The two complement one another in many ways, and social can help users reach decisions about their search results. We talked about that at length here. It’s also why Facebook has great potential as a search engine. 

    Bing is smart to take advantage of Facebook data in different ways, and we’ll no doubt see more integrations as time goes on. Google can’t get the kind of access Bing has, and it refuses to go the Facebook Connect/social plug-in route that a substantial portion of the web (even Myspace) has embraced.

    Bing and Facebook are two of the biggest competitors Google has, and the more they work together, the more Google has to worry about. 

    Related:
    What if Facebook Goes Search While Google Struggles to Go Social?
    Why Windows Phone 7 Could Be Google’s Biggest Threat

  • Are Bing’s New “Artist Pages” for Music Search Ready for Prime Time?

    Are Bing’s New “Artist Pages” for Music Search Ready for Prime Time?

    Microsoft has released new "artist pages" for Bing. When you search for a musician or band, it should bring up one of these pages directly on Bing, including things like an artist bio, genre information, a list of playable song samples, discography, videos, news, tour dates, web results, etc. 

    "Whether you’re looking to discover deeper cuts, in the market for tickets to the next concert, brushing up on your favorite lyrics, buying a song or finding out whether the lead singer was arrested, Bing now organizes the most common things associated with your favorite artist in a new user interface," the Bing Team explains. 

    The concept isn’t bad, but the execution leaves quite a bit to be desired. My first instinct, using this feature, was to check out one of my favorite bands (Converge) to see what kind of info Bing delivered. I was disappointed to say the least.

    Labels Can Be Deceiving

    First off, the genre Bing has the band labeled as is "Electronic/Dance". I’m not a big fan of the limitations of labels, but this is just way off. There is nothing about the band Converge that is remotely reminiscent of such a genre. They play a special brand of moody metal with roots in hard core (though in some songs they defy genre entirely). That’s beside the point though. If I’m using Bing to check out a band I’ve never actually heard and the first thing I see is a label indicating that band belongs to a genre I don’t care for, I’m not likely to even sample the songs, and am bound to go on my way assuming this band is not for me. That’s not good for artists. 

    Converge on Bing

    Interestingly enough, the first five words of the bio, which is directly under the genre (if you make it that far to read it) are, "The punk metal act Converge", which would be a more appropriate label (I suppose). The bio info and the song samples are pulled from Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace. I’ve asked the company where the genre info comes from, and am awaiting response. Zune has the band listed as simply "Rock" (which isn’t all that helpful either, but is more accurate than what the artist page says). 

    Irrelevant Results

    The videos section simply goes to a Bing video search, which in the case of Converge, again leaves a lot to be desired. There are some Converge videos scattered among a lot of other random videos. I could look past this if I were just doing a search, because I don’t expect Bing to necessarily know that I am talking about the band (though this is debatable since I have them "liked" on my Facebook profile, and I believe Bing has access to that information), but when you’re coming directly from the artist page for this band, you would think they could do a better job filtering the artist-related videos out of the rest. At least the top three video results, which are visible on the artist page itself (before clicking through to see more results) are related to the band. 

    No such luck with the regular web results section on the artist page however. The first result is for "Converge – Global Supply Chain Management", followed by the band’s official site. Again, if I were just doing a random search, I could forgive this, but being how I’m on the actual artist page, Bing knows I’m talking about the band, yet it is still giving me the non-band result over the band result. 

    Other Issues

    The "Converge" page is also lacking some of the other features afforded to some other artists (like tour dates, news, etc.). There is a link for lyrics, but you’d be hard pressed to find any Converge lyrics in there. It seems to pull any random song from any random artist that happens to contain the word "converge" in its lyrics. That must be what I’m looking for if I’m on a Converge artist page right? 

    Even the Zune marketplace, where much of the info for the artist pages appears to be pulled from has news for Converge (via the band’s official Twitter account), but this is not present on the artist page. 

    Is Converge the exception rather than the rule? Look up the band Grizzly Bear. There is an artist page for this group, which includes videos and images of grizzly bears (the animal). One of two web results is the Wikipedia page for the animal. 

    Grizzly Bear on Bing

    Bing’s artist pages might be more useful to you if the band you’re looking for doesn’t share a name with other things. Lady Gaga searchers are safe. It’s a good thing the Beatles didn’t call themselves the Beetles. 

    Not a Good Time for Bing to Disappoint

    Bing’s artist pages could be quite useful for users and could help out Microsoft’s Zune unit, but they’re going to have to make some improvements. I’m not sure this was ready for prime time. Bing stands to make significant gains in search market share for reasons we’ve discussed before, and music searches are often done from mobile devices (which is one key area where Bing is bound to get some of that newfound market share). 

    Users may not be left with the greatest taste in their mouths if these are the kinds of results they’re presented with.

    What do you think of Bing’s new artist pages? Let us know in the comments.

  • Bing Users Really Into Kim Kardashian

    Bing Users Really Into Kim Kardashian

    It’s getting to be that time of year. December is just around the corner then a new year will sneak up on us quickly. Bing sent us its lists of top searches and top people searches for the year 2010. 

    The lists illustrate a (possibly unhealthy) obsession with celebrities. "While Michael Jackson was number one and topical items like Swine Flu and Stock Market appeared in the top 10 in 2009, the tables have turned this year, with 2010 reflecting the growing appetite for celebrity news," a representative for Bing tells WebProNews.

    The top ten overall searches in 2010 on Bing have been:

    1) Kim Kardashian 
    2) Sandra Bullock 
    3) Tiger Woods 
    4) Lady Gaga 
    5) Barack Obama 
    6) Hairstyles 
    7) Kate Gosselin 
    8) Walmart 
    9) Justin Bieber
    10) free

    Kim Kardashian Bing Search

    Similarly, the top people searches have been:

    1) Kim Kardashian 
    2) Sandra Bullock 
    3) Tiger Woods 
    4) Lady Gaga 
    5) Barack Obama 
    6) Kate Gosselin 
    7) Justin Bieber 
    8) Jesse James 
    9) Lindsay Lohan 
    10) Jennifer Aniston
    11) Michael Jackson

    "This year’s #1 searched for topic on Bing.com was Kim Kardashian, who won top searched by a landslide – with 20% more searches than #2 Sandra Bullock," the rep says. "In fact, 2009 top searched Michael Jackson dropped to the #11 position for most popular people searched on Bing in 2010, and the only repeat top 10 searched item was Kate Gosselin (last year’s #8) – although this year she appeared alone – minus Jon."

    "The struggling economy is also reflected in this year’s top searches, with discount retailer Walmart and the topic ‘free’ appearing in the top 10," she points out.

    We’ll no doubt start seeing similar lists pop up soon from other search providers, and then we can compare the user bases for each. I’m guessing that they won’t be incredibly different. It will be particularly interesting to compare those from Bing users and Yahoo users, given that Bing is now providing Yahoo’s results.

    I find it a little interesting that "hairstyles" came in at number 6 on Bing’s overall list among so many celebrities. Could it be related to Kim Kardashian (Kim Kardashian hairstyles a suggestion for the ‘kim kardashian’ query). Thoughts? Please share.

    Update: A Microsoft spokesperson tells us, "Hairstyles made the top 10 list because people were searching for everything from celebrity hairstyles to special occasion styles to styles by hair type. Celebrities influenced the styles, with short cuts on newbie Carey Mulligan and the classic Halle Berry trending in the hairstyle searches. Although hair is of interest year-round, summer appeared to be the time when new hairstyle exploration gained momentum."

  • Microsoft Names Principal Architect Of Bing Mobile

    A man who fostered a great reputation in the geospatial community by founding OpenStreetMap, "a free editable map of the whole world," has started working for Microsoft.  The company announced today that Steve Coast will assume the impressive title "Principal Architect of Bing Mobile."

    We should note right here: this development doesn’t mean Coast is turning his back on OpenStreetMap or the geo community in general.  As part of the deal, Coast apparently made sure that Microsoft will be allowing access to its global orthorectified aerial imagery.

    Also, a post on the Bing Maps Blog explained, "As a Principal Architect for Bing Mobile, Steve will help develop better mapping experiences for our customers and partners, and lead efforts to engage with OpenStreetMap and other open source and open data projects."

    open maps images

    So it looks like this move is going to benefit Bing, Bing’s users, and people who prefer to steer clear of legal and technical restrictions when it comes to mapping.  Along with Coast himself, presumably.

    Coast wrote on his blog today, "[I’m] super excited to tell you that I’ve accepted a position as Principal Architect at Bing Mobile and am moving to the Seattle, Washington area to work on maptastic things!  Yay!"

  • Retailers Increasing Paid Search Ads Ahead Of Black Friday

    U.S. paid search spend from retailers has increased nearly 37 percent ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, compared to last year, according to a new report from SearchIgnite.

    The increase in retailers’ online PPC spend appears to be paying off as the economy bounces back from the recession; the rate at which consumers converted after clicking on a paid search advertisement was up 28.7% and their Average Order Values from online shopping were up 20.7% YoY.

    "The increase on search spend among retailers is promising for the state of the search market overall," said Roger Barnette, CEO of SearchIgnite.

    Search-Advertising

    "More promising, however, is consumers’ increased Average Order Values and conversion rates. We expect this to be a very strong holiday season for e-commerce as the economy bounces back and consumers increasingly go online to do their shopping."

    Other highlights from the report include:

    *Spend growth slows on the combined Yahoo/Bing: Retailers’ search advertising spend on the combined Yahoo/Bing grew only 2.2% YoY, down from mid-Q4 2009 when both engines showed more significant increases (47% Bing, 8% Yahoo YoY).

    *CPCs are rising for retailers: CPCs are rising. Despite widespread speculation that CPCs would increase specifically on Yahoo/Bing following their integration, CPCs rose most notably on Google (13% YoY), compared with only 4% rise on Yahoo/Bing. 

     

  • Is a Shake-Up Brewing in the Search Market?

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