Bing Watch . . . Just Bing It!

Trick-or-treat Bing, the Dracula Decision Engine

Bing launched a video ads featuring a vampire or dracula few days ago.  We posted the video link here to celebrate trick-or-treat festival for American children which is well known as Halloween day.  It usually celebrates on October 31.  American children proceed in home-made or store-made costume from house to house.  Home owners or apartment renters usually give kids who asking for treats such as wrapped candies or chocolates or popcorns, or sometime cash monies.

Watch Dracula Decision Engine, click here

 

Bing decision engine for mobile users using a short URL at m.bing.com

Bing updated its decision engine for people on the go using a short URL at m.bing.com.  Aside for searching local info, finding quick answers, and accessing maps, Bing mobile services added several new features.  As per Bing team blog, the new updated services now includes American football data for players and scores, travel info and flight status, and search feature for touch apps.  The mobile services is currently available only in 31 selected countries (note: some cool features are available for America users only).

(photo: bing.com)

Return of the Jedi Google

According to a latest study published by Chitika, an online ad network, show that Bing is losing share of unique users and share of impressions to rival Google.  While Bing has spent over $100 million to market the new brand as "Bing decision engine" and the money has been evaporating quick enough.  With all the efforts with Cashback program and great travel section, Bing seems to have unsuccessfully to retain users it had captured during the summer.  Based on these new data from Chitika, it appears that the Jedi Google has returned to dominate the Internet advertising. 

(1) Unique users

Based on a sample of over 273 million users from Chitika network, Bing only captured 6.25% of total unique users in October, compared to Google’s share of unique users at 83.82%.

(2) Impressions

In term of impressions, based on a sample of over 579 million impressions from Chitika network, Bing accumulated only 5.44% of total impressions in October, compared to Google’s share of impressions at 84.99%.

Bing + Yahoo filed an extension to negotiate the deal

The America’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has received a Form 8-K from Yahoo, Inc. stating that both parties needed an extension to negotiate the 10-years global deal which was announced on July 29.   As the SEC legal paper shows that both parties “agreed to extend the period to negotiate and execute a Search and Advertising Services and Sales Agreement and a License Agreement.”  The previous deadline to finalize the deal was on October 27, while both parties have continued to submit additional documents during the past three months.   As per the Form 8-K submitted by Yahoo, it also stated that both sides “have made good progress to date, and have agreed to execute the agreements as expeditiously as possible.”

Bing Shopping & Cashback + Mercent (on-demand marketing solutions)

A latest report by Mercent, a provider of on-demand marketing solutions, shows a significant sales growth rate from July to September.  By utilizing Bing Shopping and Cashback program, Mercent has helped its clients (retailers) to increase sales as high as 550% from sales of the previous quarter (Apr-June).   Mercent believes the similar growth rate will be achieved from month of October to December as high volume of online shopping due to holiday season.  As per the press release, Mercent wrote “This significant growth demonstrates Bing’s selling effectiveness and the staggering rate at which merchants are adopting the online advertising and sales channel using Mercent’s platform.”

Bing + Windows 7 Gallery

One of the characteristic of Bing homepage is a big photograph as the homepage wallpaper.  Many users returned to Bing to see what the new photo is every day.  As Windows 7 launched last week, Bing offers a pack of about 20 homepage photos for free download at Windows site.  

 

Bing’s parent reports July to September results (First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2010)

Bing’s parent has just announced their quarterly (July to September) earning after one day of a very successful launching of a new operating system Windows 7 on October 22, 2009. 

The online business division who handles Bing property generated revenues of $490 million (revenues were down 3% vs. previous quarter; and down 6% vs. one year ago).  As Bing is gaining search market share momentum in America and worldwide, Bing continues to attract deals from friends and families which will expand Bing into a strong player in search engine.  In the same time, Bing’s parent has invested heavily during the past 5 months since Bing launch in early June.  These investments were very costly and Bing’s parent reported a loss of about $480 million during the last quarter (July to September).

(chart: Microsoft)

Bing + Facebook data mining deal to go live sometime in early 2010

During an exclusive interview with telegraph.co.uk at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, told the news outlet that the deal of real-time updates from Facebook and Bing will be available for public ‘within two months.’  Given the holiday season ahead of us in America, we will expect to see the real-time status updates from Facebook users streaming into Bing decision engine sometime in early 2010. 

Not everyone using Facebook will have their update status data stream into Bing decision engine, as privacy precaution, only users who have set as “everyone on web” will be allowed to be streamed to Bing.  As telegraph.co.uk quoted Ms. Sandberg, “Only people who have agreed to share their updates with everyone on the web will have their updates streamed to Bing. This move is about giving people more choices about how they share their information."

According to telegraph.co.uk report as it quoted Ms. Sandberg, the deal between Facebook and Bing will not adding much revenue to Facebook bank account.  This means that for most social networking sites, they still have to find other revenue sources.

Threesome, three possibilities, Bing + Facebook + Twitter

In today’s Web 2.0 Summit, Microsoft President, Online Services Division, Qi Lu, will announce nonexclusive deals between Bing with both Facebook and Twitter, as reported by Kara Swisher of allthingsd.com.  This is one of the biggest data-mining deal to integrate social media real-time feed and updates into Bing decision engine.

As real-time data-mining has becoming an important ingredient for a search engine, adding Twitter and Facebook could make Bing decision engine as a major player in the search wars to compete with Google.  Real-time search provides current trends, what’s hot out there, and will definitely deliver a better targeted advertising (i.e., pay-per-click ads) for users searching for certain hot topics.

According to the latest social network data, Facebook is holding over 300 million users worldwide, and with over 40 million status updates per day.  Meanwhile Twitter has over 50 million users.

Updated: After officially announced at Web 2.0 Summit by Bing's top executive, a real-time Bing + Twitter website went live at around 12:00 noon PST, click here for more info.

Screenshot for Bing + Twitter website:

Everybody Loves Bing

A letter signed by American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) CEO and President Nancy Hill, was sent to America’s Department of Justice, as a support evidence for Bing + Yahoo deal, as reported by seattlepi.com.  As previously reported, many additional documents had been submitted to the America’s Department of Justice, as the deal is currently being reviewed by the antitrust division.

On the letter dated October 19, 2009, Nancy Hill wrote "We believe that Yahoo! and Microsoft's proposal to combine their technologies and search platforms is good for advertisers, marketing services agencies, website publishers and consumers."

Bing + Gravity Summit NYC (November 16, 2009)

Bing is the Title Sponsor for Gravity Summit New York City.  This is a business conference dedicated for social media networking and marketing which will be held on November 16, 2009.  The conference will help businesses to take advantages of real-time social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.) and to analyze links between those social media and marketing needs.  It also features case studies from TurboTax and Domino's pizza, and others.

The combo of Bing + Yahoo faces hurdles in Europe

The combo of Bing + Yahoo is going to be in a smooth riding into the altar in America sometime early 2010.  However, the approval process is not so fast in Europe, as reported by marketwatch.com, Bing’s boss, Steve Ballmer, has told reporters that the combo could be facing some regulatory hurdles in Europe.  As reported by marketwatch.com which quoted Ballmer, "Europe's a little confusing because the Europeans have to decide which jurisdiction, whether it's the European Commission or some of the national competition authorities.”

Bing China + Mobile

In the race to capture over 300 million Chinese users where land-line is impossible as majority Chinese users access Internet thru mobile phone, Bing China, a.k.a. “biying” (English: “giving answer”) will soon launch Bing mobile portal in China.  The mobile portal, as reported by pcworld.com, will offer Bing decision engine for mobile users (maps, local info, and weather info), chatting thru Internet Messenger, and access to Hotmail thru mobile phone.  The new portal will compete directly with Baidu.com (a very large local provider) and Google China.  According to the most recent data, both Baidu.com and Google have controlled over 95% of China search market.

Bing search share remained at a stable level in September

Since the beginning of the month of October, we published two reports using data from (1) hitwise.com and (2) StatCounter showing a slightly drop on Bing search share for the month of September.  However, comScore just released its qSearch data as published by techcrunch.com, which show Bing search share remained at a stable level in September. 
As per comScore qSearch data, Bing search market share in America was unchanged and remained at stable level at 9.4% in September, compared to August which was at 9.3% (an increase of 0.1%).

In the same period of time, Bing’s rival, Google, saw its search share jumped in September to 64.9%, compared to August which was at 64.6% (an increase of 0.3%).  
 
(Source: comScore qSearch & techcrunch.com)

Bing rocket launcher

Bing logo was put on a Boeing Delta II 7920 rocket launcher that was blasted into the orbit from an America's military base in California last week.  The launcher carried DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 satellite, as reported by cnet.com.  Bing Maps will soon have access to WorldView-2 images, and according cnet.com report as quoted Digital Globe people, those new world images will be shared with Google Maps as well. 

The new satellite is more powerful than the current WorldView-1 satellite, as cnet.com wrote “DigitalGlobe expects WorldView-2 will double the company's capacity to collect imagery. The satellite's top resolution can detect features as small as 0.46 meter, though U.S. government regulations permit general commercial sales of imagery only of 0.5-meter resolution.”

(photo: Bill Hartenstein, Boeing, cnet.com)

Bing’s share of ads spending and clicks: Q2-09 vs. Q3-09

A latest report from Efficient Frontier (a search advertising firm), as published by nytimes.com, show Bing’s share of ads spending increased to 5.3% during Q3-09, compared to Q2-09 at 4.3%. 

Meantime, according to the same report, Bing’s share of clicks increased to 4.8% during Q3-09, compared to Q2-09 at 4.1%. 

Bing's share of online ads spending

 
Bing's share of clicks

 
(data: Efficient Frontier & nytimes.com)

Bing + Yahoo memo on data mining

The latest update regarding Bing + Yahoo 10-years global deal surfaced over the past weekend.  According to a memo from Bing + Yahoo teams, as reported by Kara Swisher (allthingsd.com), both teams wrote back and responded to few questions from consumer groups.  As reported by allthingsd.com, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDC) under the leadership of Jeffrey Chester, had submitted several questions to America’s Justice Department. 

In order to respond to consumer groups questions about data collection, data storing, data crunching, and data mining, Bing + Yahoo teams provided all necessary answers to the list of questions.  According to the returned memo from the combo team, as published by Kara Swisher (allthingsd.com), here are few excerpts of the memo:

What specific data collection, interactive ad technologies and targeting applications will be used for search under the 10 year deal?

Today, Yahoo! collects data about Yahoo! visitors to our search product and uses that information to deliver products and to customize advertising and content, among other purposes described in its Privacy Policy. Microsoft and Yahoo! have each adopted industry-leading privacy practices with respect to search. For instance, under Yahoo!’s global data retention policy, Yahoo! anonymizes user log data within 90 days with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. For search specifically, Yahoo! will convey certain data to Microsoft to fulfill a user’s search request. This includes the query and the IP address. Microsoft will anonymize this data sent to it by Yahoo! in accordance with Yahoo!’s announced data retention policies. Microsoft is only permitted to use search data that it obtains under the deal to operate and improve its search services and for no other purpose.

Sleeping with the enemy: Bing and Google + Twitter

From a very reliable Silicon Valley insider, All Things Digital, as reported by Kara Swisher, there is a working plan to stream Twitter's real-time data and content-sharing feed and integrates it into Bing decision engine and Google search results.  The data-mining plan would generate millions of dollars for Twitter team and revenue sharing on ads (i.e., thru pay-per-click) on Bing or Google.  As reported by Swisher, “Sources said a number of scenarios are being discussed to compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets from its 54 million monthly users.”

Many tech analysts believe the deal would be nonexclusive.  This is partly due to Twitter's management stands to be neutral in the search wars between Bing decision engine and Google search engine.  As Swisher wrote, “The deals, stressed sources close to the situation, are nonexclusive, especially because Twitter's management is keen to remain independent and also nonpartisan in the growing search battle between Google and Microsoft.”

Bing added “Reference” page (by Powerset team)

If users who conducting searches were curious to know more about Bing wallpaper image of the day (homepage photo), now they can click on Bing Reference page.  The Bing Reference page is also accessible thru Bing homepage by clicking “More” on sidebar (Explore navigation) and then click on "Reference" on the subsequent page. 

The newly modified Bing Reference page now includes a Wikipedia entry about the homepage photo of the day.  The new Reference page also added a new timeline table on right side for detailing important history events that occurred on that date.  It also added two clickable sections for "Sample Searches" and "People in the news."

According to Bing team blog, the new “Bing Reference is a product of the Powerset team…”  Powerset is the brain trust behind majority of Bing technology, a company Bing’s parent bought in summer last year.  As reported previously, Bing’s parent paid about $100 million to acquired Powerset in 2008.

   

Bing + Voice Recognition Technology

Bing has started to utilize voice recognition technology from Tellme, a company Bing’s parent bought in 2007.  Users conducting search just need to press the voice button on their phone and talk, then, Bing will return with search results.

Sprint Wireless announced a special offer with a brand new Samsung Intrepid phone with features from Windows Mobile 6.5 OS and Microsoft Office Mobile (edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint files).  The new phone is equipped with voice recognition technology and interface from Tellme which allows users to conduct search with Bing decision engine by speaking their search queries.  According to Bing team blog, “this new interface will allow you to search the Web with Bing by speaking your search query, compose a text message or even dial a contact by simply talking instead of typing.”

Watch video Tellme on the new Samsung Intrepid, click here:

 
  

Bing share of America search market dropped slightly during the past four weeks (September 2009)

 
Using a four-week dataset from Aug. 29, 2009 to Oct. 3, 2009 and based on a sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users, Hitwise reported that Bing share of America search market dropped to 8.96% in September, compared to August search market share of 9.48% (a drop of 0.52%). 

Google share of America search market gained slightly to 71.08% in September, compared to August search market share of 70.24% (an increase of 0.84%). 

 
Source: Experian Hitwise

Bing has a winning strategy on Android phones for Verizon Wireless

As we reported early this summer that Bing has signed a 5-year deal worth $500 million to power search and mobile ads for Verizon Wireless, America number one wireless carrier.  As reported by businessinsider.com, “…Bing could replace Google as the default search engine on some of Verizon's Android phones, we have confirmed with the carrier…” 

This means that any phones running Android OS for Verizon Wireless will have a pre-installed Bing homepage, as the default decision engine.  Anytime a Verizon user conducting a mobile search, it will certainly see Bing pay-per-click ads. This will generate more searches and more money for Bing.  As businessinsider.com added "But it's also one way that Google could be left out of the revenue equation, or at least get a smaller cut."

Bing acts as the premier sponsor for Search Marketing Expo (SMX East) New York City

 
A large number of top online marketers and search engines gurus will be in New York City attending SMX East from October 5 to 7, 2009. 

This is the largest search engine event in East coast this year where users were offered with over 60 sessions on SEO, pay-per-click, social media networking, local search, real-time search, and mobile search.

Bing acts as the premier sponsor for Search Marketing Expo (SMX East) New York City this year.  Bing show off several new features at Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose about two months ago.

Yahoo shares have risen about 17% since the Bing deal

As the 10-years global deal was announced on July 29, many Wall Street analysts believed the 10-years deal was mainly benefiting Bing.  However, in recent weeks, many critics of the Bing partnership have praised the deal.  One significant measurement is on Yahoo shares.  Yahoo shares closed at $15.14 on July 29, and it closed at $17.81 on October 1.  Yahoo shares have increased about 17% since the Bing deal, while its market cap has increased about $3 billion since the closing day on July 29.

(chart: finance.yahoo.com)

Bing’s share of America search market hit a bumpy ride in September

As summer travel has passed in America, back-to-school shopping has done, and double cashback promotion has ended, Bing traffic hit a bumpy ride in September.  According to StatCounter, Bing’s share of America search market dropped to 8.51% in September, compared to August share of 9.64% (a drop of 1.13%).  In the meantime, Google’s share of America search market jumped to 80.08% in September, compared to August share of 77.83% (an increase of 2.25%).