It’s now been 18 months since Bing first launched in the UK. But with a market share of just 1.66%, we’re expecting to see some innovative plans soon to ensure its survival.
To give Bing credit, it has spent a large portion of its time in the UK in Beta testing. So now that it is openly in the market, and preparing to come out of Beta in Australia, the Microsoft-owned search engine is picking up its game.
Today, Microsoft has announced that the feature that highlights Facebook activity around some of Bing’s search results has been “extended” to include any and all URLs.
The tech giant said in a blog post that the expansion of its Facebook partnership – which was announced last October – was “part of a longer journey,” and that it played a complimentary role to the company’s efforts in adding a social layer to is results, as it did with Twitter.
The blog said: “This is the first time in human history that people are leaving social traces that machines can read and learn from, and present enhanced online experiences based on those traces.
“As people spend more time online and integrate their offline and online worlds, they will want their friends’ social activity and their social data to help them in making better decisions. Integrating with Twitter data 16 months ago was one step, and exploring Facebook’s rich streams is another.
“If your friends have publicly liked or shared any of the algorithmic search results shown on Bing, we will now surface them right below the result.”
The Bing feature analyzes links that show up in its search results to see if Facebook friends have “liked” that particular URL.
Last week, Google unveiled a similar feature in the US, which takes advantage of data from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to display links that have been shared by other users.
According to many search experts, social is where search is headed in 2011 and there’s no doubt that Bing’s partnership with Facebook has potential to be a real game changer. Now it’s just down to raising some brand awareness.