Bing Watch . . . Just Bing It!

Bing team said no way to Yahoo! Japan + Google partnership

Bing team will not let the Yahoo! Japan + Google partnership goes easily, as per a report by businessinsider.com.  Bing team believes the combination of giant search Google and popular portal website Yahoo! Japan will control about 98% of the search market in the country.  

Citing Bing team representative, businessinsider.com quoted “We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more harmful to competition than Google’s deal with Yahoo in 2008 that the DOJ found to be illegal.” 

Legal experts think that Bing team may have a good case to block Yahoo! Japan and Google partnership.   However, businessinsider.com reported that Japanese regulators could approve the deal as anti-trust law may differ between America and Japan system.

Global mobile search market share: Google dominates search on mobile devices with 98.29% share versus Bing at 0.46% share

Using global visitor stats from over three million websites via StatCounter network, pingdom.com published charts showing that Google owns 98.29% share of mobile search market in the world, while Bing has only 0.46% of global share.   According to pingdom.com, Google has 95.58% share of global mobile search market one year ago (an increase of 2.71% share).

In term of global search engine market, Google owns 90.57% share compared to Bing at 3.74% share.  The combo of Bing and Yahoo totaled at 7.65% share of global search engine market.

 
(chart: pingdom.com)

Bing Highlights adds new features for Safari 5.0.1 web browser which works on Apple iPad and iPhone

Safari 5.0.1 web browser which works on Apple iPad and iPhone has many extensions.   One of the extensions is Bing Highlights.   During Apple World Wide Developers Conference in early June this year, Apple added Bing as one of the search engine choices within Safari web browser (Google was the default search engine).  

Today, Bing introduces its first extension for Safari 5.0.1 web browser dubbed as Bing Highlights.  Bing Highlights feature includes:

• instant maps and driving directions
• translations
• up-to-date flight status
• search results

Click here to download Bing Highlights (via Apple’s Safari Extension Gallery).

Yahoo! Japan said No Deal Bing

As an independent unit from Yahoo headquarters in America, Yahoo! Japan decided to go with its own instinct and has chosen Google instead of Bing Japan to run its backend algorithmic search engine and pay-per-click network.  Although Yahoo HQ holds about 35% equity on Yahoo! Japan unit, the HQ does not have the voting power and the Japan unit is separated from publicly traded company.  Japanese giant Internet and mobile service provider SoftBank Corp owns 40 percent of Yahoo Japan.   The agreement between Yahoo! Japan with Google was leaked out earlier by Kara Swisher of AllThingsD.com.

The deal with Google will also include serving ads to sections such as mail, messenger, mobile, content properties and others.

In the meantime, Yahoo! search alliance with Bing continues to follow its schedule as planned.  Yahoo! Japan assured Bing that their agreement with Google will not hurt ‘Yahoo powered by Bing’ rollout in other regions.

Bing, you've got mail to selling AOL search traffic

Many tech watchers believe that there are only two emails left on AOL CEO Tim Armstrong desk to find the next partner to selling its search traffic, either Bing has got an email or Google will.  According to Fortune magazine, the current search deal with Google is worth about $700 million per year.  The active search deal will expire in December. 

While speaking at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen Colorado, Armstrong denied that AOL is only interested to deal with Bing or Google.  However, with this multi-million deal, no other companies could afford it, except the decision engine or the giant search engine. 

In meantime the market value of AOL is around $2.25 billion, or about three years worth of a search traffic contract.  With so much cash on hand, AOL is a good target for Bing parent to buy, as it could be cheaper to purchase than to sign a three years search contract.

Bing will be the default decision search on all Windows Phone 7 devices with attractive design and more features

As everyone working at Bing will soon receive a free Windows Phone 7 device sometime in October, Bing team is happy to show off a new app that was built for Windows Phone 7.  Bing will be the default decision search on all Windows Phone 7 devices. 

The new Bing mobile app retains the beautiful homepage photos with square highlight trivia link to each images.  Also, Bing Maps is built into the new Windows Phone 7 as the default maps services.   Users will be seamless to zooming in and out.  Other features include such as weather info with visually attractive view on weather data and flight status updates from the decision engine.

(Screenshot: Bing team)

All Bing employees to get free Windows Phone 7 gadgets as they will be available in October but employees still have to pay for the service plan

About 88,000 to 90,000 Microsoft employees around the world (about 53,000 of them in America) including a couple of thousands men and women for Bing division will get free Windows Phone 7 devices as they will be available in October.  The announcement was made by Andy Lees, Sr. VP of Mobile Communication Business during Microsoft Global Experience (MGX) conference in Atlanta on Wednesday.  The news about these free gadgets was first tweeted and re-tweeted by Microsoft insider Mary Jo Foley.

While all employees will get the free device with a market value at around $200, they still have to pay for the service plan with data plan at about $50 per month.

Windows Phone 7 has gained many interesting reviews by tech reseachers and bloggers as the software is now shipped to mobile developers.

Bing starts testing about 25 percent of Yahoo organic and paid search listings traffic in America

As Bing and Yahoo started to sort our keywords relevancy with advertisers since mid-May, both teams began testing to integrate the two engines.   According to Yahoo team blog, about 25 percent of Yahoo organic and paid search listings traffic in America is currently powered by the decision engine.   While users will see very little changes within Yahoo pages, Yahoo team also pre-cautioned its advertisers that “you might also notice some differences in how we’re displaying select search results due to a variety of product configurations we are testing.”  This mostly likely due to the limit of keywords and number of characters that can be displayed.

On Yahoo page, top right and bottom ‘sponsored results’ are now powered by Bing during the testing periods, while contents and other listings are still powered by Yahoo.

Since the search alliance received a final approval from America's Justice Dept in mid-Feb this year, both teams have been working hard to catch this holiday season shopping and marketing money. Yahoo team believes that their organic search listings will be integrated into Bing before the end of summer (September).  While Yahoo paid search will be fully powered by the decision engine in October.

 
(Screenshot: Yahoo blog)

Ooh…Ooh! Ahh…Ahh! Google Images copies Bing Images to attract visual web searchers

As more and more web searchers continue to conduct images search, Google upgrades its features including “Similar images” and “Similar colors” tools.  With its sophisticated algorithmic processing power, Google organizes all types of images to help user to find information.   These new tools almost similar to Bing Images search.  Bing gains a high numbers of kids using this tool since launch. 

According to Google blog post, the upgraded Google Images section has the following capabilities:

• Users can see tiled layout which is similar to Bing’s layout
• Users can scroll between pages (with up to 1,000 images)
• Users can preview the images (also in HD)

 
(photo: Google official blog)

Bing University partners with Microsoft Web N-gram Services to add all non-commercial researchers worldwide

Bing and its parent’s Web N-gram Services public beta is now offered to all researchers worldwide.   The public beta is free and users can access via Microsoft Azure cloud-based platform.   One part of the services is that it provides web-based real-world data services for researchers around the world. 

An example of the benefit of the cloud-based dataset is a project conducted by Kuansan Wang as a principal researcher at Microsoft.  Wang and his team conduct research on developing technologies to tackle languages spoken by human, reported Microsoft Research blog. 

When the services launch in late April this year, it only allowed researchers and professors from top universities in America to crunch these big datasets. 

According to Microsoft Research blog, the latest updated Web N-gram Services will also include APIs support to help researchers to present their findings using models and using query-language.

Click here to go to Web N-gram Services

Real data for search market share: Bing traffic gains are real while Google continues to decline in web traffic

Many Internet analysts and bloggers have speculated the legitimacy growth of Bing web traffic which has surpassed giant Google domination in search market share since early 2010.   The last two weeks data from Hitwise and comScore have pointed that Bing genuinely gained share in America.  And now, using data from 40,941,886 impressions from its network, Chitika Research also confirmed the previous search share numbers.

Chitika Research concluded that Bing recent share gains are not from the result of controversy as tricks or slide-show manipulation which have skewed the overall data collections by Hitwise or comScore or other web traffic data providers.

As of mid-July, Chitika data shows that Bing has gained about 2.2% from April.  Bing now has about 6.6% share.  In the meantime, between April and July, Google has dropped about 3.1% from April.   Google now has about 85.8% share.

 
(Table: Chitika)

Bing asks its users (incl. kids) to set the decision engine as default search provider in exchange for $3 to fund school projects

As back to school season is around the corner while many schools have been facing budget issues, Bing is partnering with DonorsChoose.org to fund classroom projects.  The recipients’ schools are mostly in America. 

There is only one requirement for Bing users where they must set Bing as their default search provider.  As soon as users set Bing as their default engine, Bing will send a link with code where users can decide which schools they want to donate a $3 fund to help students.  Click here to start.

 

Bing's Best from Japan, a new set of theme pack (18 images) for Windows 7 operating system

Bing’s Best releases a new set of theme pack for Windows 7 operating system.  The latest pack is for Bing fans personal use.  This new pack contains 18 images from Japan.   Click here to download.

In early June, Bing released Bing's Best #3 for Windows 7 OS that was previously appeared on Bing’s homepage for Americans audiences. 

The first pack was released during Windows 7 launch in October 22 last year.  The second pack of Bing's Best #2 was made available in mid-April this year.

Bing’s big boss Steve Ballmer to keynote at Professional Developers (PDC10) in Redmond, Oct 28-29, 2010

Bing parent just announced that this year Professional Developers (PDC10) will be held in Redmond campus.   Steve Ballmer will keynote at PDC10.  The cost of registration for the conference is $1,000 USD. 

Based on previous year’s experiences, this Professional Developers event usually was the main focus of launching new products.  At PDC10, Bing's parent company will be officially launching Windows Phone 7 and the new Xbox Kinect.  Each attendance could get a free Windows Phone 7 smartphone handset or a free Xbox Kinect. 

Last year PDC09 was held at Los Angeles Conference Center where Microsoft announced Silverlight 4.0 and each attendance received a free laptop.

Bing search market share hit a new record high at 12.7% while Google dropped to 62.6% in June

 
The widely used dataset from comScore for June 2010 in America was released by JPMorgan's Imran Khan as reported by Business Insider.  Bing search market share increased to 12.7% in June, compared to 12.1% in May (an increase of 0.6%).  Since January 2010, Bing has gained about 1.4% share.  Since its launch in May 2009, Bing has gained a total of 4.7% share (or, 58.75% growth since May 2009).

Google search market share dropped to 62.6% in June, compared to 63.7% in May (a drop of 1.1%).  This was the first time ever Google has lost 1.1% within one month period.  Google hit its peak in December 2009 with 65.7% share.  Since January 2010, Google has lost about 2.8% share.

Bing's headquarter at City Center Plaza office tower in Bellevue has a new landlord with a purchase price of $310 million all-cash

As one of the top commercial building landlord in the world, Cole Real Estate Investments (Cole) has purchased the tower that currently is the HQ of Bing decision engine.  The purchase price is $310 million all-cash, as per Cole press release. 

The tower was constructed in 2008 and has a total of 583,179 square feet which 96% of the building space has a primary tenant through 2024 to Microsoft.  This environmental friendly building also received a gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

(photo: downtownbellevue.com)

Bing extends its partnership with American professional football team Seattle Seahawks as a presenting partner for training camp

The decision engine extends its partnership with its hometown professional football team, the Seattle Seahawks as a presenting partner for training camp.  The partnership started last year’s training camp as all players wore their jerseys with a Bing logo.

According to Seattle Seahawks press release, Bing logo will continue to be attached into team's practice jerseys.  While the team will also upgrade Bing as a presenting partner during this year’s training camp.

Some important dates for Seahawks fans:

• Pre-registrations open: July 12, 10 a.m. via website seahawks.com
• Training camps open: July 31 (Saturday) to August 16 (Monday)
• Camp location: Virginia Mason Athletic Center (VMAC) in Renton

Some welcome good news for Bing for June 2010‎, as its piece of the pie of searches in America rise to 9.85% share

 
According to the last four weeks web traffic data ended June 26 provided by Experian Hitwise, Bing’s piece of the pie of searches in America rise to 9.85% share from 9.23% (an increase of 0.62%).  As per the current Hitwise data, this is good news for Bing as the decision engine hit a new record high of 9.85% share.

Google share of America’s searches dropped to 71.65%, compared to May which was at 72.17% (a drop of 0.52%).

Bing helps LeBron James to make decision about his future NBA basketball team

Several top basketball players have made their decisions on which NBA teams they will join next season.  However, one last top player in the planet, LeBron James, is still conducting search via Bing to find the best decision for his career in basketball.  King James the superstar will make his decision via live TV in a segment called “The Decision” reported Bing team.  This special episode will be sponsored by Bing and it will airs live on Thursday, July 8, starting at 6:00 pm Pacific Time on ESPN.

Basketball analysts believe Mr. James will stay will Cleveland, or move on to Chicago or Miami.

 

Bing is partnering with Zynga (Café World) to offer 2 Free Café Cash for Facebook gamers

Zynga, the popular Facebook social games creator of FarmVille is partnering with Bing to offer its players with 2 Free Café Cash via other popular games Café World.  Café World is an online games catered for virtual chef in the culinary world.  Gamers can choose hundreds types of dishes to cook or mouth-watering cakes to bake for offering their daily specials to other gamers.

Players must login into their Facebook accounts and can earn the 2 Free Café Cash by clicking some promotion items and links to Bing decision engine.   Not everyone can earn 2 Free Café Cash, as the official rules wrote “Available in certain territories only.”

 

Bing is partnering with Stubhub and Ryan Seacrest in searching for Lady Gaga Superfans

As the decision engine continues to upgrade features for the summer, Bing is partnering with Stubhub and Ryan Seacrest (American Idol MC) to promote the Lady Gaga Superfan Search.   The current promotion is also in conjunction with the 40th Anniversary celebration of America's Top 40. 

The national search will end on July 19 and winners will be announced on July 23.   According to Bing team blog, each of the winners will receive a prize package which includes a round-trip airline tickets to one of Lady Gaga tour shows in Miami, New York, Las Vegas, or Chicago. 

USA.gov, the official information and services from America’s government is now powered by Bing decision engine

Whatever Americans Internet users want from its government in term of online information, services, and resources, they can now visit USA.gov web portal or use their smartphones to tap into mobile apps.  As Americans celebrating their 234th Independence Day, government officials under Obama administration re-launched USA.gov web portal which now features 18 mobile apps and all apps are free for download, reported CNN.

The America's government official information and services web portal provides info such as passport renewal, taxes, school loans, elections, consumer protection and other topics.  The best of all, the new portal is now powered by Bing decision engine with very neat and clean user interface.  As CNN wrote “USA.gov focuses on simplifying the look and feel of the user experience by clearly displaying information about government services and having the most popular search terms featured. The search bar is powered by Microsoft's Bing technology and has been altered to highlight government websites.”

 

Bing Sweepstakes, a chance to win Bing branded packs of office supplies

All participants must have registered as a Microsoft adCenter Advertiser and they must obtain an adCenter account number.  Then, participants need to fill in the Bing Bling Birthday Sweepstakes form before July 16, 2010.

Due to the sweepstakes rules, only adults who live in America and Britain are allowed to join the competition.  Winners will be randomly selected on July 19, 2010.  There will be 100 American winners and 100 British winners.  Each pack has a market value of $35.

 

Google Travel section takes off with a round-trip airfare for $700 million, as the giant search engine acquires ITA Software to compete with Bing Travel

As the decision engine continues to capture search market share with its popular travel search features since launch about one year ago, Google wants to look like Bing Travel too.  As Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience wrote “almost half of all airline tickets are sold online.”  Google decided to go after Bing’s main source of travel information by acquiring the provider, ITA Software. 

The giant search engine has agreed to pay $700 million in cash to take over this Boston-based software company.  Later Mayer wrote “Once we’ve completed our acquisition of ITA, we’ll work on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for you to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy your ticket.”  With its deep-pocket Google also get many great developers from ITA, as Mayer added “…combining ITA’s expertise as the leading developer of flight information software with Google’s technology we’ll be able to create great user innovations in flight search."