Bing Watch . . . Just Bing It!

Bing Shopping partners with ResellerRatings.com to provide merchant ratings and helping consumers to make better decision

The decision engine partners with ResellerRatings.com to provide its users with online merchant ratings.  ResellerRatings.com’s scoring systems are currently generated thru shoppers’ reviews.  According to ResellerRatings.com press release, over 1,500 popular ecommerce sites have utilized the scoring system, include Newegg, 1800PetMeds, B&H Photo Video, HomeClick and TigerDirect. 

While Bing Shopping has partnered with Facebook to gain fans and friends reviews which may influence their purchasing decisions, the latest addition of ResellerRatings.com will help Bing Shopping users to find the best merchants and avoid hassles of fake reviews.  In the press release, ResellerRatings.com mentioned that they applied straight rules to deter fake reviews and suspicious submissions, as they noted “with reviewer-supplied order number data.”

Bing’s adCenter was down on Monday afternoon due to issues with the API as engineers fixed and resolved service problems after nine hours

Bing’s adCenter went down on Monday afternoon.  The initial tweet was sent by @adCenter at 2:52pm PST and text “We are aware that some are unable to access adCenter at this time, our teams are working on the issue – thank you for your patience.”  Later at 6:23pm PST @adCenter tweeted an update “Microsoft Advertising adCenter: Temporary Technical Difficulties.”

After almost nine hours at 11:45 pm PST, Tina Kelleher of adCenter updated a blog post and said that engineers were able to fix and resolve API issues.  According to the blog post, the technical issue only affecting marketers to login into adCenter, but services remained okay during the downtime.

(Images Top: @adCenter at 2:52pm PST, Monday, August 29, 2011; bottom: @adCenter at 6:23pm PST, Monday, August 29, 2011).

Bing’s rival to adjust and re-rank search results by mining data from Google+1 button

The decision engine’s rival Google is working hard to tweak its algorithms with Google+1 button.  As reported by Wired.com on Monday evening, Google search results will soon be determined by data mining from Google+1 button.  The integration of Google+1 button into search and page ranking could have been come sooner or later, as Wired.com believes that the search engine giant is trying to cure web spam. 

Google +1 button is almost similar to Facebook's Like button.  The new feature was launched at the end of March 2011.  While Bing has a very close relationship with Facebook by mining data from the world’s largest social networking, Google has been building its own social networking to compete with Facebook. 

Users can click on Google +1 button on any sites, or while googling search results on Google’s properties.  Google +1 is updated regularly to determine the important and popularity of a website.  Citing an early email from Google, Wired.com wrote “There are more than 200 signals that we use to determine the rank of a website, and last year we made more than 500 improvements to the algorithm.”

Tracking Atlantic hurricanes thru Bing Visual Search include by names, year, months, or by deadliest and costliest, etc.

As residents in East Coast of America are facing natural disaster this weekend with arriving of powerful Hurricane Irene, millions Internet users will visit search and decision engines to find out more info on the Hurricane path.

Bing Visual Search provides variety info on actual hurricanes.  For example, if users type-in “Atlantic hurricanes” on Bing search box, the decision engine will show 145 hurricanes by names, year, months, etc.  The Visual Search also shows a list of 34 deadliest and 11 costliest recorded hurricanes. Users can compare fatalities, states affected, intensity of wind, and duration. Most of Bing’s search data were crunched from NOAA, Wikipedia, and FEMA. 

 
(Image: Bing Visual Search)

Decide, tweet, and win: the decision engine gives away five prizes worth $25 each, plus five free t-shirts with graphic showing “MTV Moon Man”

In order to get more web traffics thru MTV generation, Bing is asking its users to reply to a question tweeting out from @Bing Twitter account.  The first question from @Bing handle read “Which ‘@MTV Vid of the Year’ nominee do u think will win?”  Each user who reply to this question on Twitter must use hashtag #bingVMAs.

The contest is open on Thursday, August 25 at 9:00 am PST and closes at 5:00 pm PST on the same day.  The organizer will give away five prizes worth $25 each and free t-shirt with graphic showing MTV Moon Man.  Only users who live in America can join the contest and must be at least 18 years old (read rules).

Here is a list of MTV nominees:

• Adele "Rolling in the Deep"
• Beastie Boys "Make Some Noise"
• Bruno Mars "Grenade"
• Katy Perry "Firework"
• Tyler, The Creator "Yonkers"

(Images: MTV and Twitter)

Bing’s sister MSN China partners with Renren.com (Chinese language social-networking website similar to Facebook) to serve half a billion netizens in China

Bing’s sister company MSN China signed a contract with Renren.com (English translation: “person-person” or “people-people”) to serve instant messaging and social networking using MSN Messenger.  Renren.com is also famous as the Facebook of the Great Wall nation.

To better serve a population close to half a billion netizens in China, the two companies will provide secured login access on both web properties include photos sharing and social status updates, reported reuters.com.  Tech watchers believe that there will be more integration between the two web properties in coming months.

During the weekend holiday of Fourth of July this year, Bing also signed an agreement with Baidu, the largest search engine in China.  The deal allows Bing to extract search results in English-language to serve Baidu users worldwide.

The decision engine releases Bing Maps WPF Control (Beta) to provide developers with more controls

Bing team released a new software development kit (SDK) for developers to get more controls on Bing Maps.  The new SDK is available for download via Bing Maps WPF Control (Beta) website which has a download size of 4.0 MB.  WPF stands for Windows Presentation Foundation.  As the website noted “provides the binaries and programming reference…”

According to Bing team, the new SDK allows developers to control the following functionalities:

• Changing styles for road, aerial map, and hybrid street and satellite maps
• Adding pins, multi-lines, and polygons
• Controlling zoom-in and zoom-out with keyboard

Bing Maps team (Streetside) has been touring European countries with a car-mounted camera to collect public roads info since April 2011 and some results start showing in the decision engine maps section include for London

The first car-mounted camera was spotted in London in April this year, as Bing Maps team partners with NAVTEQ to collect public roads information.  To better inform the decision engine users, Bing also assigned a mini-site to provide some details about Streetside targeting Britain and the European countries.  According to Bing Streetside site, the decision engine maps section “provides a true-to-life view you can explore to get a feel for a place and plan your activities.”

Using the current Bing Maps, any users who click on the ‘blue person’ icon on the top navigation bar, they will experience the Streetside maps with enriched photographs.  Some of those photos utilized Microsoft Photosynth technology and catered for mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad. 

 
Bing Maps team has launched the Streetside maps for most large cities in America include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and others, since late 2009.  The latest Bing Maps update for August 2011 showed blued-out areas for London, Britain.

As per the official schedule from Bing team, the start date for London was April 2011 and will finish by August 2011.  Bing team will also wrap up other European countries include France and Germany by the end of the year.

(Top: NAVTEQ; Middle: Bing Maps London; Bottom: Bing Maps official schedule)

The Search Alliance combo Bing and Yahoo expands to Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and several Arabic countries in Middle East

It appears that a lot of works were get done by the Search Alliance combo Bing and Yahoo during the month of August 2011.  During the first week of August, the Search Alliance begun switching organic search results from ‘old’ Yahoo system to Bing system in several top European nations include Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. 

A week later, the Search Alliance team switched all searches in countries include New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and India. 

By the third week of August, “Yahoo! Search powered by Bing” is now in full force in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and several Arabic speaking countries in Middle East.

The initial transition of Yahoo! Search to Bing occurred in America and Canada about one year ago.  Then, the transition was paused in late April this year due to complain from Yahoo’s CEO Bartz regarding revenue per search (RPS).  Yahoo’s boss was concerned with Bing’s adCenter as revenues generated from the Search Alliance were at below expectations.

Bing adds “We’re In” mobile app to help finding friends and sharing their location info

The new app dubbed as “We’re In” allows mobile users to organizing a quick meeting or finding friends on the go.  Bing also enhances the mobile app with live map, so users can locate their friends' location.  The new mobile app also has features to let users to invite friends, join, and share info.

 
(Image: Bing team)

The Four Musketeers: Bing, Xbox, Kinect, and Tellme voice recognition to invade consumers’ living rooms and transform their life-style forever

The integration of four products and services, Bing, Xbox, Kinect, and Tellme voice recognition was first announced during E3 conference in Los Angeles during the first week of June 2011.  This week Bing’s parent announced the release of those four products and services into one package to enhance consumers’ living rooms within the next few months.

In a blog post by Frank X. Shaw, top executive at Bing’s parent headquarter, Shaw wrote “…integration of products and services like Xbox, Kinect and Bing is at the heart of our strategy.”   Xbox and Kinect are the two hottest products at Redmond campus, while Tellme Networks was acquired by Bing’s parent in 2007. 

With the four products and services, users can use hand-free controller and voice recognition to conduct search and to find movies, games, etc.  However, one of Bing’s top executive had previously noticed that the voice search will only available in English language which catered to consumers in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.

(Image: The Four Musketeers movie poster)

The Search Alliance Bing and Yahoo integrate web traffic stats from both engines into a single control panel

Starting August 16, the Search Alliance Bing and Yahoo will allow advertisers and marketers to check web traffic data thru one control panel.  According to Bing team, data migration was started on August 12 and expected to finish by August 16.  However, for full month coverage, web traffic reports will be available starting the month of September.

Users can check out web traffic from both Bing and Yahoo including data on impressions, clicks, click through rates (CTR), etc.  Bing team warned that the unit count for web traffic data will go up for the combined stats.

(Image: Bing team)

Bing simplifies its shopping search to help users to make better and faster shopping decisions

Bing Shopping section added several new features to help the decision engine users to compare products, find better prices, and make faster decisions.  According to Bing Team, the Shopping section added filters with auto inserted keywords and pull down menus for users to get faster search results.  Shopping filters include by Category, Brand, Style, Material, Hell height, etc.

The latest updates also allow users to generate multiple shopping lists.  Those lists could also be shared among Facebook friends and family members.  In addition, Bing Team also add filters of people to share those shopping lists with, so only few good friends or family members can give their opinions on the lists.

 
(Image: Bing Shopping)

The Search Alliance Bing and Yahoo beat Google on search effectiveness with the average success rate of 81.12% for the combo, compared to 67.56% for Google

While the search giant company Google remained dominant in term of search engine market share, the combo Bing and Yahoo beat Google on search effectiveness.  Using sample data from 10 million Internet users in America for a period from July 2 to July 30, 2011, Experian Hitwise reported that queries made through the search alliance Bing decision engine and Yahoo Search lead more users to click on a web link and web page after visiting the search alliance sites. 

As both the decision engine and Yahoo Search are now powered by Bing search technology, the average success rate for Bing and Yahoo searches in America in July was 81.12%.  Yahoo search success rate is the highest among popular search engines.  81.36% of searches conducted at Yahoo resulted in a visit to a web page, while 80.60% of searchers who conducted search at the decision engine will click on a link and visit to a website.

Google leads fewer searchers to click on website pages after visiting the giant search engine site. The success rate for Google was 67.56%.

Early this week, comScore published the most recent web traffic data in America.  comScore showed the combo has captured 30.5% share of search engine market in America in July, while Google dropped to 65.1% market share in July.

(Table: Experian Hitwise)

Bing will be the gold sponsor for the 13th anniversary of Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference and expo in San Francisco, from August 15 to 19, 2011

Internet strategists, marketers, and SEO experts will be attending next week’s Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference and expo in San Francisco.  The event will take place from August 15 to 19 at Moscone West, 4th St and Howard St. 

According to SES official website, several hot topics and sessions will be covered and presented during the event including Search Engine Optimization, pay-per-click research and management, social search, local search, mobile search, and others.

Bing decision engine will be the gold sponsor for this year event and will have a booth to showcase new features, while at the same time the Bing team will spend time to chit-chat with the decision engine advertisers and sponsors.  Bing team also invites all webmasters and website owners to brainstorming new ideas to enhance the decision engine.

 
(Image: Search Engine Strategies in San Francisco)

The Search Alliance combo had a total of 30.5% share of web searches in America in July 2011, as Bing remained at 14.4% market share while Yahoo Search jumped to 16.1% market share

The Search Alliance combo between Bing and Yahoo Search had a total of 30.5% share of web searches in America in July 2011, as per data from comScore, compared to 30.3% market share in June (an increase of 0.2% share).

Bing decision engine's share of  explicit core search or user intent search was unchanged at 14.4% shares during the past two months, June and July 2011.

Yahoo had a total of 16.1% market share in July, compared to one month ago which was at 15.9% market share (an increase of 0.2% share).

Google dropped to 65.1% market share in July, compared to June which was at 65.5% shares (a drop of 0.4% share).

The most popular online activities among Internet users in America: 96% of young adult (age group of 18-29) use search and decision engines to googling information, while 92% of all online adults are search and decision engine users

 
The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project just released their findings for the most popular activities for adults who go online.  The Pew’s survey for search, conducted from April 26 to May 22 of 2,277 adults 18-year-old and older, found conducting search is one the most popular activities for all online adults.  92% of all adult Internet users answered the survey and they use search on a regular basis.  Conducting search via Bing, Yahoo, and Google increased slightly from 85% of all adults in 2002 to 92% in 2011.

While for young adult Internet users (age group of 18-29), majority of this age group, or 96%, use search engines to googling information online.  For oldest Internet users (age group of 65 plus), 87% are search engine and decision engine users.   

Other top five most popular online activities include sending and receiving email, reading news, shopping, and using social networking.  Sending and reading emails remain stable since 2002 at about 92% to 93%.  Reading news online continued to be the number three most popular online activities as the percentage for this online activity increased from 68% in 2002 to 76% in 2011.  Shopping and ecommerce activity increased from 61% in 2002 to 71% in 2011. 

Connecting with friends and asking for advices from friends is now the number five most popular online activity in America.  Only 11% of adults using social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace in 2005, but this social networking activity increased extensively to 65% in 2011.

(Charts: The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project)

Bing moves back to number two spot in Britain’s search engine rankings in July 2011 with 3.84% shares, while Google grabs 91.04% shares

Bing is now the number two search engine in Britain, as per monthly traffic data release by hitwise.com.  The decision engine captured 3.84% shares of search engine market in July, compared to June which was at 2.88% shares (an increase of 0.96%). 

The previous number two spot was held by Yahoo Search.  The Search Alliance and partner of Bing had a total 2.96% shares in June, and remained stable at 3.00% shares in July.  But, Yahoo Search dropped to number three in Britain’s search engine rankings in July 2011.

Google, the world’s largest search engine continued to own Britain search engine market with a total of 91.04% shares, compared to June which was at 92.02% shares (a drop of 0.98%). It looks like Bing has taken almost 1% share from Google.

 
(Table: hitwise.com)

Several Internet service providers (ISPs) appear to hijack and redirect searches to search engines (incl. Bing and Yahoo) which may be illegal

A team of researchers at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California, and led by Christian Kreibich and Nicholas Weaver, found several Internet service providers (ISPs) have been hijacking and redirecting searches to search engines including to Bing and Yahoo.  As newscientist.com wrote "All the ISPs identified by the Berkeley team redirect some Bing and Yahoo searches."  ISPs get paid by tracking their subscribers’ behaviors and redirecting them to affiliate sites and retail websites.

Legal experts and consumer protection agencies believe such act may be illegal.  According to newscientist.com, majority of those redirected traffic are using sophisticated software build by a Virginia-based company Paxfire.  According to newscientist.com, two law firms in New York, Reese Richman and Milberg, had filed a class action to stop the redirecting activity to search engines including to Bing and Yahoo.

Bing for Mobile team added mall maps for 400 shopping malls to help the decision engine shoppers to take a short cut in and out the mall faster

As last year’s holiday season shopping gaining momentum on December 7, Bing mall maps for desktop were made available for malls in Seattle, Boston, and New York City metropolitan areas. 

After eight months later Bing for Mobile team added new collection of 400+ shopping malls.  Mobile decision engine users can now access those mall maps by go to m.bing.com.

In order to find a particular mall, users just need to type-in mall name on Bing search box or go directly to Bing Maps section.  A small black dot will appear on the map and users can click on it.  Then, a full mall map will show up include information for each level. 

(Image: Bing team)

Boiling blood in the West Coast: Bing’s parent versus Google in patents wars for smartphone intellectual properties

After one day Google got in bed with Bing by offering the best local deals, several top level executives include legal counsels and communications chief for Bing’s parent and Google were in patents wars this Wednesday evening, August 3.  It started in the Wednesday afternoon at 12:37pm PST as one of the top Google's executives for legal department accused Bing’s parent has worked closely with Apple to disrupt Android dominant in the smartphone market share. 

Later in the day at 4:44pm PST, one of Bing’s parent top level legal counsel sent out a tweet proclaiming that Google’s accusation were not true as both companies had tried to buy patents from Novell together last year.

As many tech watchers have gone sleep in East Coast at 6:43pm PST, Bing’s parent company communications chief Frank Shaw tweeted a copy of email from Google's executive to Bing’s parent company executive showing both company was willing to work together to solve the patents wars in October 2010.

 
Images: Tweets by: Brad Smith (top) and Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft (bottom)

Google gets in bed with Bing and the Dealmap: the world’s largest search engine will continue to deliver the best local deals to its biggest rival after acquiring the daily deal aggregator

The Dealmap, a company that aggregates daily local deals to over 50 commercial distribution partners, including Bing decision engine, has been acquired by Google early this week.  There was no price tag for the acquisition.

On March 3, 2011, Bing announced a partnership with The Dealmap to provide local and daily deals via desktop or mobile devices for American users.   Based on the monthly data in March, the Dealmap aggregated all type of deals from more than 14,000 cities in America and totaled about 200,000 deals.  In early July the Dealmap blog published a new set of metrics showed the startup company has over 2 million users.  On the post, they said that over 1 million Android and iPhone users have downloaded the Dealmap mobile app.  They also claimed 85 million visitors visited the Dealmap’s DealExchange distribution network each month.  

While Google will own the Dealmap property, the world’s largest search engine will continue to deliver the best local deals to its biggest rival for months to come until their previous contract expired.

The Search Alliance updates: Yahoo! Search’s properties in Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy to switch to the decision engine organic results starting Wednesday, August 3

 
After Yahoo! Search in America had completed its transition of organic search results to Bing one year ago, starting this Wednesday (August 3) Yahoo Search’s properties in top European nations include Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy will also be switched to the decision engine organic results.  The update was early reported by searchengineland.com after receiving an email notice from Yahoo! Search Marketing team.

At the end of April this year after dismissal quarterly earnings thru the Search Alliance, Bing’s parent has decided to delay its international expansions with Yahoo! Search.   The delay was due to revenue per search (RPS) was at below expectations.  At the same time, Yahoo’s CEO Bartz also barked that the main reason for low revenue was due to limited functionality of Bing’s adCenter.