New Bing Incorporates Social Media Tools

Microsoft has released its “New Bing” search engine. The New Bing incorporates social media tools and brings social search to a new level by adding elements from popular social media sites,  a shiny new look, and a sidebar interface. The new Bing is divided into three distinct parts: Search knows, Bing knows, and Friends know.

With the New Bing Search Knows

The “Search knows” portion is essentially the traditional list of search results that many people are used to seeing. Microsoft says it has cleaned up these results by improving, “the relevancy of Web searches by removing unnecessary links and simplifying the results to the core set of information users are looking for”.

Bing Knows

The “Bing knows” portion is called Snapshot. Snapshot will display specific information, like statistics and prices that are relevant to your search, in a similar fashion to a feature that Google includes in its engine. This feature could be especially useful for searches that require price comparison or directions.

Friends Know

The “Friends Know” sidebar on the right side incorporates social networking tools into the search experience, allowing users to see recommendations related to their search from their Facebook friends. In this sidebar, users can see which of their friends have “liked” items from their search, and even see reviews from their friends, and from other experts and enthusiasts that they probably don’t know from sites like Blogspot and Twitter.

The “Friends Know” sidebar will eventually include Foursquare, Quora and other social networking websites. In addition, Microsoft claims to have removed some of the social media related hits from their search results, which they think will banish some of the clutter users experience when combing the web for specific pieces of information.

We Think

Bing’s new social spin marks an exciting step forward for Microsoft’s search engine, one that could differentiate it from Google and convince many consumers who are familiar with its quality products to switch their homepage over to Bing.

The new Bing will roll out over the next few weeks. Ready to get started now?  Click here to check out the New Bing.

Bigfin.com