Bing Watch . . . Just Bing It!

43.4% of web-only retailers are planning to shift some pay-per-click spending to Bing

Based on a survey of 102 web-only retailers, Internet Retailer found that 43.4% of respondents are planning to shift some pay-per-click spending to Bing in coming months.  Of those new spending on Bing, 18% of pay-per-click ads will be taken from Google budget, while about 15% of the ads cost will be allocated from Yahoo budget.

As Bing had received approval from America’s Justice Department and EU Union on its partnership with Yahoo, Bing apparently continues to gain attraction from online marketers.  According to the article written by Bill Siwicki of Internet Retailer, more retail marketers are now taking a second look at Bing, as the decision engine will soon to be the number two engine in America.

Bing Mother’s Day greeting card and cashback

Bing added a slick website for users to create greeting card for this year Mother’s Day.  Users can create a personalized card by typing a short message.  The website also lets users to choose theme, border, background, and image for the greeting card.

Users also can send a shopping coupon from Bing cashback.  From now to May 7, users will earn up to 30% cashback from Bing’s partners (incl. 1800flowers.com, ice.com, etc.).

Share of searches in America in March: a dozen of Bings

Nielsen just released March 2010 share of searches in America.  Bing search share remains at above a dozen, 12.2% exactly.  Compared to February, Bing captured 12.5% share, a slightly drop of 0.3%.

Share of total number of queries for the giant Google increases slightly to 65.7%, compared to February, Google's share was 65.2%, or an increase of 0.5%.

Since starting of a new year, Bing has increased a total of 2.3%, while Google dropped about 1.6% for the same period of three months.

(Source: Nielsen)

Bing U: Bing gives access to professors and students to crunch its large datasets

In a collaboration with its parent’s large datasets storing system via Azure cloud-based services, Bing has allowed access to its super-size datasets to include academic community around the world.  Bing announced the collaboration during the World Wide Web Conference (WWW2010) this week. 

The datasets at Microsoft Web N-gram Services include all documents indexed by Bing which contain a collection of web search, natural language processing, and speech.  

For now, only professors and students at accredited colleges and universities can crunch its big chunk of datasets which are currently stored via Azure cloud-based services.   

According to msdn.com blog, Web N-gram Services could help ”people learn another language or search for information with queries that are spoken rather than typed.”

Click here to find out more about Web N-gram Services

Bing overtakes Yahoo by a 0.2% margin and is the number two engine in UK

With all Bing and decide promotions in UK starting early March 2010 including TV ads, Bing shows some improvements in UK search market share.  Based on the latest data from atinternet-institute.com, Bing overtakes Yahoo to second place in UK search engine market share in March. 

The latest data was collected thru 12,696 websites, from March 1 to 31, 2010.  Bing captures about 3.8% search engine market share, while Yahoo drops to 3.6% share.  Yahoo dropped 0.5% in UK during the period.

As per the data from atinternet-institute.com, Google remains the top search engine in UK with 89.7% share.  Google also dominates in France, Germany, and Spain.

Bing’s extra arm: millions mobile devices made by Samsung will be pre-loaded with Yahoo search

As one of the world largest mobile devices maker Samsung and Yahoo just announced a strategic global partnership to distribute Yahoo search and services to Samsung mobile devices.   The partnership will start to be implemented in May 2010.  Millions new mobile devices and gadgets made by Samsung will be pre-loaded with Yahoo search and services (incl. Mail, Messenger, Flickr, News, Finance, etc.). 

The partnership will benefit Bing decision engine significantly, as Yahoo search will power millions devices running Samsung bada and Android platforms, as per the press release.  As long time friends, Samsung and Yahoo have partnered since 2007.  The latest partnership will help Bing decision engine to gain search market share in mobile arena, as Yahoo search will soon be powered by Bing in the next few months.

Giant software’s not-so-cheap decision engine

Last June the giant software company’s boss Mr. Ballmer told a business luncheon in Chicago after the decision engine had already been launched that his company will invest 5 to 10 percent of the annual operating income into the search business for up to five years.  The price tag for the decision engine division (Online Services) has reached (loss) $1.659 Billion for a period of nine months for Fiscal Year 2010.  From July 2009 to March 2010, the division has additional loss of $592 Million, compared to the same period of one year ago (an increase of 55% in loss). 

Within the first three months of 2010, the decision engine has burned enough fuels while it’s also included the cost of Yahoo partnership fees.  From January to March 2010, the division had spent (-) $713 Million, compared to the same period of one year ago which was only (-)$411 Million (an increase of 73% in loss).

Given the above numbers from yesterday’s Microsoft Q3-FY2010 quarter report on operating income, by the time Bing celebrates its first birthday next month, the total operating income for the first twelve months will be over $2.1 Billion (loss).  It’s not so cheap to raise this kid.

  

Bing has a richer parent as Microsoft posts Q1-2010 profit gain (Q3 FY 2010)

Bing’s parent Microsoft shares have been going up sharply during the past few days after Intel announced their Q1-2010 earnings last week.  Over the past two months Microsoft stock has gained over 12 percent.

Today, Microsoft announced their earnings which many Wall Street experts have predicted to be above the guideline.  And it is true, today’s data shows Microsoft latest quarter (note: Microsoft uses Q3 Fiscal Year 2010 as the official term) earning result did not disappointed any analysts in the planet.  Majority of Microsoft revenues were from the top-selling of Windows 7, the new Operating System replacing XP and Vista.  PCs with the new OS are selling like hot cakes since its launch in October 22.  The new OS is now running on over 10% of global PCs.

Like Bing’s biggest partner Yahoo, Microsoft experienced one of the best quarter after several so-so quarters.  As soon as the Wall Street closed today at 1:00PM PST, Microsoft announced revenue totaled $14.50 billion.  Microsoft Q1-2010 (Q3 FY 2010) net income increased significantly to $4.01 billion, or 45 cents a share for the period ended March.

With a healthy and richer parent and plus partner with Yahoo, Bing will be stronger than ever to fight the dominant of Google in search engine market share.

40th anniversary of Earth Day photo contest winner

Using data from over 200,000 votes from Bing users who submitted their votes since April 13, Bing team announced the 40th anniversary of Earth Day photo contest winner.  Grand prize winner is Alan Bosse (18+ age group), a web designer student at Gulf Coast Community College, Panama City, FL.  The photo shows bee gathering nectar from the tip of a passion fruit flower.  The winner photo appears on Bing homepage today to celebrate Earth Day.

Winners will be invited to Bing campus in late May this year, while the four age groups will split the prizes totaled more than $70,000.

Click here to view winners for four age groups

 
(Bing homepage showing the grand prize winner, photo by Alan Bosse)

Bing sponsors hometown professional women basketball team

Bing signed a multiyear partnership to sponsor WNBA's Seattle Storm.  Bing logo will appear on front and center of Storm jerseys starting with the first game on May 2 at KeyArena against the Phoenix Mercury.   Bing logo will also integrate into Storm marketing and promotional materials, as per WNBA press release.

Last September, Bing also sponsored another hometown professional football team Seahawks.  This team players wear practice jerseys with a Bing logo on front.

(photo: WBNA Storm)

Bing’s biggest partner Yahoo posts Q1-2010 profit grow

After several quarters with disappointed results, Bing’s top partner Yahoo announced its Q1-2010 earnings after Wall Street closed today.  Yahoo Q1-2010 net income increased to $310.2 million, or 22 cents per share (with extra 7 cents from the sale of Zimbra, an open source email system), as reported by MarketWatch.com.   Compared to one year ago, Yahoo’s net income was $118 million, or 8 cents per share.   Yahoo has revenue totaled at $1.13 billion.

The latest result will definitely help Yahoo’s search and advertising partnership with Bing, as the deal has already been approved by two continents, Europe and America in the mid of February this year.

Bing plays a critical role in the web as a platform

As several U-Haul trucks were unloading 200 ex-Yahooligans stuffs into Bing’s new research center in Bangalore, Bing Master Qi Lu was in India to cheer up the new troops. 

While in India, Mr. Lu was interviewed by local media. According to indiatimes.com quoted Qi Lu said “[Bing] is trying to turn search into a technology platform, one that helps consumers take complex decisions.”  Mr. Lu later added “Modern computing is moving towards cloud-based computing and it is a strategic initiative for us.”

End of Live

The URL for Live.com has hit its end-of-life (EOL) about one week ago.  The pre-Bing decision engine was also known as Live Search.  

For the past ten months, when user typed-in Live.com URL, it usually redirected to Bing homepage.  But now, Live.com URL is pointing to the main homepage of Windows Live (also known as http://home.live.com). 

Live Search (http://search.live.com) was first announced to public in early November 2005.  Then, it rebranded with a new and short name as Bing by the end of May 2009.

The next wave of Live.com will incorporate Hotmail, Messenger, Xbox Live, Office Web Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), and SkyDrive (online storage).

 

Bing starts to stream real time social content directly from Twitter

Early this week, Bing released a new feature that incorporates real-time news and events updates from Twitter community.  The added feature was first announced in late October last year during Web 2.0 Summit.

Bing real time search results will give users who conduct search with relevance updates within the moment of a breaking news event.  The live content is streaming directly from Twitter. 

Using its superior dataset crunching, as per Bing team blog, Bing provides the most popular topics and the most interest on Twitter to match users’ intension.

It’s time to vote for Earth Day Photo Contest

With 17,000 entries, Bing team has selected 12 finalists from around America's schools.  Voting is open from April 13 to April 19.  Each voter of the first 20,000 people who vote per day will receive a GivingCards worth $5.00 and to be sent to DonorsChoose.org. 

The submission for the photo contest started on March 29 and ended on April 11.  The winning photo will appear on Bing homepage on Earth Day (April 22).

To view and vote on the 12 finalists, please visit earthdayphotocontest.com

America’s paid search spend on Bing increased about 21.6%, from Q1-2009 to Q1-2010

SearchIgnite, an SEO provider and online media solution company, noted that America’s paid search spend increased about 11.1% during the past twelve months span, from Q1-2009 to Q1-2010.  The latest data were collected from January 1 to March 31, 2010, and using a dataset of 50 billion impressions and 1 billion clicks on three top search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

For year-over-year comparison, paid search spend on Bing increased about 21.6%.  While on Google, paid search increased only 15.2%.

The research findings also noted that paid search spend on Bing during Q1-2010 dropped about 7.1% compared to Q4-2009.  The quarter-over-quarter decline was due to drop in retail search spending.

Click here to download a full version of the report from SearchIgnite

Meet Kin, Bing’s new family member

In less than one hour Bing’s parent will introduce a new family member in the phone gadget arena to compete with a bunch of big guys including Google Nexus One and Apple iPhone. 

Many tech bloggers believe the new member of Bing family will be named as Kin.  Previously, the little Kin was also known as Pink.  The original DNA of Pink was Sidekick phones which was popular during the early 2000s, way before the arrival of iPhone.

Kin.com domain DNS record was updated on April 8.  Bing parent has bought the Kin.com domain recently.  They also own KinPhone.com as well, and was registered on April 8.

(photo: screenshot by PhoneArena showing Kin products in Verizon database)

Bing captured 11.7% of search market share in March, while Google dropped to 65.1% share

 
While Hitwise data show a small decline early this week, however, comScore show Bing jumped to 11.7% share in March, compared to February’s share of 11.5% (an increase of 0.2%).  The latest comScore data was provided by JP Morgan's Imran Khan and published by businessinsider.com on April 8 evening.

The giant search company Google dropped to 65.1% share in March, compared to February’s share of 65.5% (a drop of 0.4%). 

Since the launch of Bing in late May 2009, Google has stalled at 65% share.  Meanwhile, Bing has gained 3.7% share points (or, an increase of 46.25% from May 2009).

 

More Bing's homepage photos for Windows 7 desktop background themes

One week after a very successful Windows 7 OS lifted off to outer space in late October last year, Bing immediately added 20 background themes for users to download into their desktops.  Those 20 Bing's best photos look very cool on Windows 7 desktops.  According to Bing team, the first pack was very popular for Windows 7 fans.

This week Bing team added 21 new photos from around the world for Windows 7 desktop users (incl. Andes, Arizona’s Vermillion Cliffs, and Spain’s Basque). 

Click here to download

 

Hitwise data shows Bing dropped about 0.1% share of searches in March in America

A latest data for search market share in America was published by Hitwise (data was collected up to March 27, 2010).   Bing dropped slightly to 9.6% share, compared to February’s total share of 9.7% (a drop of 0.1%). 

Meanwhile, Google also dropped about 1%, as the giant search engine maintained about 69.9% share, compared to February's total share of 70.9%.

Bing + Glo

Bing decision engine integrates with Glo and helps a new group of users (women) to find information faster.   Glo is a new website targeting women which provides the latest content on style, beauty, living and relationship, as per a press release by Bing’s parent. 

Glo combines many photos and commentaries from writers with a unique user interface that goes vertical to catch more eyeballs (scrolls from top to bottom).   Glo aggregates original content from their writers (multi-nationals Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. and Santa Monica based BermanBraun) and third-party content from partners. 

Some interesting features of Glo:

- Scrapbook
- Sharing tools
- Facebook
- Full-screen photo galleries

Glo is a second partnership between Bing’s parent and Santa Monica based BermanBraun.  In February 2009, Microsoft MSN and BermanBraun launched WONDERWALL.   WONDERWALL’s user interface goes horizontal design that scrolls from left to right.

Bing and decide in UK part 3 “Greenhouse”

Bing UK airs a third TV ad depicting a guy [painter] asking a question something like “greenhouse…”  Then, another guy [home owner] replied “green banana…”  At the end of the ad another guy said “you’re not welcomed anymore.”

Bing UK promo with multimillion-dollar TV campaigns will continue until the end of June.  The first TV ad was air on March 10, and then continued with the second TV ad was air around March 18. 

Click here to watch the third TV ad “Greenhouse”

 

Bing Maps + Oodle Rentals

While housing market in America remained at a stagnate level and is not so easy to get a bank loan, more people are searching for an apartment, condo, or house to rent.  In the latest partnership with Oodle Rentals, Bing Maps is now providing an application to display rental properties to target local users around America, as per Bing team blog. 

Using the enhanced interface from Oodle Rentals, if a user enters a location in the search box, Bing Maps will show rental properties nearby in the particular location.  Other features include filtering the search results by specify what type of property to rent, rentals price, number unit of bedrooms, and amenities options.

 

(photo: Bing)

Bing needs several U-Hauls in Bangalore, India

As part of the 10-year global deal which had received approvals from EU and America’s Justice Department in mid-February this year, 200 Yahoo's employees, incl. bright engineers and search experts, who are currently working in Yahoo Bangalore India will move to Bing R&D center.  Bing needs several U-Haul trucks to move all ex-Yahoo stuffs to its center which is located in the same city as Yahoo. 

The latest move was confirmed by Satya Nadella, a Microsoft senior VP for R&D, as reported pcworld.com.  Citing Nadella, pcworld.com also confirmed that “…to complete the transfer of the Yahoo engineers in India to the Bangalore center by the end of this year.”