bing

Facebook's traffic from Google and Bing takes a nosedive

It seems all of Facebook's fears regarding Google's "Search Plus Your World" have been confirmed...maybe.

New stats on referral traffic to Facebook from Google were recently released by a Facebook analytics company called PageLever. The news site Search Engine Land first reported this data. The numbers show that ever since "Search Plus Your World" launched in January, Facebook's traffic has taken a nosedive.

What's strange, however, is that referral traffic from Bing is also down -- and obviously Bing doesn't use "Search Plus Your World."

Google rolled out &… Read more

Nokia delivers live traffic, geocoding to Bing

Nokia has brought a couple of its location-based services to Bing Maps.

The company announced yesterday that Bing Maps users will now have traffic information available to them from Nokia's Where platform. Where is available in 24 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. According to Nokia, users in the U.S. already had traffic information available to them, but this addition now includes support for side streets.

Nokia is also bringing geocoding to Bing Maps, allowing the platform to take latitude and longitude information, and connect that to a readable address.

"It's how … Read more

VCs' next big things: Big data, drugs, and education

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Some of Silicon Valley's greatest minds used an interesting piece of hardware to vote on which trends will rule the tech world: ping pong paddles.

The Churchill Club, a business and technology forum, hosted discussion here Tuesday night, along with Forbes magazine, to pick the brains of Kevin Efrusy, Bing Gordon, Reid Hoffman, Steve Jurvetson, and Peter Thiel.

With a few hundred people seated in the grand ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara, each investor presented his case for two ideas for what he thought would be a dominating tech trend for the next five … Read more

Bing gets social, but it's too quiet in here

Want some social in your search? But not too much? The Bing-Facebook integration announced two weeks ago went live for everyone last night. The new Bing incorporates social signals into search results in both subtle and overt ways. Overall, the design works very well. The content? Not quite there.

The big advantage of the Bing approach to socially enabled search is that the fundamental search experience appears little changed. Social is mostly in a sidebar. You still get your search results in the main column. Google Plus Your World, in contrast, puts social search results in the main column, but … Read more

CTIA show signals future of wireless

week in review CTIA 2012, held this week in New Orleans, was by all accounts mellower than in prior years. And it wasn't so much about the introduction of a bevy of new products as it was about getting a sense of what's to come down the pike for carriers, phone makers, and the wireless industry as a whole. Clearly the future will be chock-full of compelling devices featuring Android's Ice Cream Sandwich and LTE data networks.

Perhaps the most impressive unveiling, Samsung's Galaxy S III flagship phone, actually happened days before CTIA 2012 kicked off. … Read more

Xbox 360 Kinect said to add Internet Explorer browsing

Microsoft may be looking to integrate Internet Explorer 9 into Xbox 360 consoles sometime in the near future, according to The Verge. Redmond is also said to be testing the use of Kinect voice and motion control to help users browse the Web.

This move would bring Microsoft closer to integrating more of its products into the same ecosystem. Right now, Xbox 360 has Bing video search and Kinect voice recognition. Although some users are pleased about not having to type in TV show and movie names, the feature has gotten mixed reviews from consumers who say they have to speak loudly and use very specific commands.… Read more

Bing pings Facebook

In today's show, we're Binging our friends, casting spells in Kindle's library, and bracing ourselves for the return of the browser wars:

Microsoft's Bing search engine now includes Facebook integration. When you search for something on Bing, a side panel will pop up and show which of your friends might help you with your search. So for example, if you search for hotels in Chicago, Bing will point out which of your friends live in Chicago.

Microsoft is also in the news today for stirring up the browser wars again. According to Mozilla, Microsoft is preventing … Read more

Bing deepens Facebook integration, connecting searchers with friends

Microsoft is making yet another attempt to deeply integrate Facebook into its Bing search experience as a way to gain some ground on archrival Google.

Today, the software giant introduced an update to Bing, adding a new column to search results that features Facebook friends who might have some insight into the query. The sidebar, set off from the white Bing page in gray, lists friends who, for example, might be able to help with a search about diving spots in Costa Rica because they shared photos from a trip to that country on Facebook.

"This notion of a … Read more

How Mark Zuckerberg inspired a more social Bing

Ten developers from Microsoft flew into San Francisco in late February last year to bang away on code with ten counterparts from Facebook.

This hackathon, something the two partners do with some regularity, had a special guest as the day wore on: Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. In one of the dozens of generic conference room that dot Microsoft's Mountain View campus, the crew spent hours swapping ideas and sharing code, coming up with new ways to integrate Facebook's social network into Bing's search technology. Near the end of the day, Zuckerberg talked to the … Read more

Many users not keen on latest Microsoft Bing search test

Microsoft's Bing team is experimenting again with changes to the Bing search experience. And the latest test seems to be confusing and failing to win over many users -- at least based on Twitter feedback I'm seeing.

Update: The negative feedback seems to have resonated with the Bing team. A spokeswoman just sent this statement (around 2:15 p.m. ET on May 9): "We heard the feedback, and we're disabling the feature now."

Sometime over the past couple of days, Microsoft began testing a new way to display Bing results. Those who are part of the test subset are seeing the results of their Bing.com search open in either a separate tab (as happens with Chrome) or an entirely new window (happening with Safari, according to some).

Microsoft officials said the change is just a test and that it is limited to the U.S. But Bing users I'm hearing from say the test is not limited to the U.S. and is happening in many other countries as well.