Bing Watch . . . Just Bing It!

Bing Business Portal partners with Office Depot to launch Digital Print Solutions to serve local and small businesses and services

Office Depot and Bing Business Portal announced a partnership to launch Digital Print Solutions which provides high-quality printed materials and PowerPoint presentations.  The new service catered for serving local and small businesses and services. 

As Office Deport wrote “The new service provides small business customers with the ability to create advertisements, sales collateral, and presentations online through the Bing Business Portal. Materials are then sent to Office Depot retail stores for order completion and customer pickup.”  The Digital Print Solutions can be accessed via www.bing.com/businessportal

Bing Business Portal (beta version) was launched on April 11, 2011.  The portal was created to assist small business owners in branding thru online and search engine.  After submitting their legitimate business names and addresses, the decision engine creates a spot into local listings or directories.  Therefore, clients and potential buyers/customers can easily find a particular business via Bing local search or thru Bing’s partners including Facebook.

Not for sale: Bing’s search alliance Yahoo! Inc. is reported to selling its Asian assets and giving back the proceeds to shareholders, instead of the sale of the entire company

Yahoo! has become a hot item for takeover in the past one month by venture funds and several groups of big-pocket buyers.  However, Bloomberg noted that the number two search engine company is now leaning toward selling its Asian assets and giving back the proceeds to shareholders. For now, Yahoo is not selling entire company to a group of buyers.

Yahoo! has also been a big target for takeover by Silicon Valley’s technology company (incl. Google backed group of investors) and Bing’s parent Microsoft. 

Two of the top Yahoo’s Asian assets include Alibaba.com ecommerce website and Yahoo! Japan.

Bing’s parent view of the future: helping office workers, colleagues, and family members to make better decisions

 

Bing’s parent Office Division introduced a short video depicting the future of office workers and home activities. The video shows office workers traveling around the world, while it also shows activities inside a home with family members. As Kurt DelBene, President of Microsoft Office Division wrote “…it helps us manage our time better, focus our attention on the most important things, and foster meaningful connections with the people we care about.”

Cast members for the video used several different types of devices including slates/tablet PCs, workstations, and mobile handsets to access data and information from any location in the world. Click here to watch the video.

Video and images by Microsoft Office Division

Mozilla Firefox with Bing: the decision engine is now set as the default setting in the search box and home page for the newest version of the popular web browser

The decision engine partners with Mozilla to introduce Firefox with Bing.  This is the newest version of Firefox popular web browser.  On the latest version, the decision engine is now set as the default search setting in the search box and also as the home page.

In conjunction with the partnership launch, Firefox also introduces a new top bar dubbed as AwesomeBar for helping users to type in queries easily.  Click here to download Firefox with Bing.

(Logo: firefoxwithbing.com)

Bing is giving away a $100 Amazon gift card to five lucky winners via @Bing Twitter account with a theme “Decide Your Best Halloween Costume”

Bing team is tweeting questions about Bing Shopping from the @Bing Twitter account on Tuesday, October 25, 2011, from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm Pacific Time.  The first question reads “He who laughs last, laughs longest. Decide which of these men’s getups is best” was tweeted at 9:04 am PST. 

In order to have a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card, the decision engine users who live in America and 18 years of age or older can reply to @Bing and include the #BingHalloween hashtag.

Screenshots: (top) Twitter.com; (bottom) Bing Shopping

Bing's rival Google changes the + search operator in search query and replaces it with "quotation marks" operator

As per a report by searchengineland.com, the giant search engine company has changed the + search operator in search query.  The + search operator considered as one of the older search operators as searchengineland.com believes this search command had been in use for about 15 years. 

Late in the day, searchengineland.com received a confirmation regarding the change, as Google’s team wrote “We’re streamlining the ways you can tell Google to search for the exact keywords you type, whether it’s an exact phrase or a single word, by focusing on the functionality of the quotation marks operator. So, if in the past you would have searched for [magazine +latina], you should now search for [magazine "latina"] to get the same results.”

Old style to conduct search using the + search operator: los angeles + usc + trojans

New functionality to conduct search using "quotation marks" operator: los angeles "usc" "trojans"

(Screenshots: Google)

Bing’s division had operating loss of $494 million during the latest quarter compared with loss of $558 million the same period of the prior year (a drop of 11.4% year over year)

As reported on Thursday October 20, Bing’s division (Online Services Division) produced $625 million in revenue for the fiscal quarter-1-2012, compared to $527 million the year-ago quarter (up 19% year over year).

The division had operating loss of $494 million during the quarter compared with loss of $558 million the year-ago quarter.  This was a slightly drop of $64 million (drop 11.4% year over year).

As per data from Hitwise, the Search Alliance combo Bing and Yahoo reached 28% market share in America, the decision engine continues to catch up with market leader Google which controlled about 66% market share as of the end of September 2011.

Bing’s division generated revenue of $625 million during fiscal Q1-2012 (July to September 2011) versus $527 million the year-ago quarter (an increase of 19%)

After the Wall Street stock market closed on Thursday (Oct 20, 2011) at 1:00pm Pacific Time, Microsoft Corporation reported their fiscal Q1-2012 (July to September 2011) earnings.

Bing’s division (Online Services Division) generated about $625 million for the latest quarter, compared to the year-ago quarter which was at $527 million. This was a 19% increase from the same period of the prior year.

(Chart: Microsoft’s Online Services Division, fiscal Q1-2012 earnings, SlidesFY12Q1 page 10)

The Search Alliance global organic transition update: Yahoo! Search is now fully powered by Bing decision engine (except in South Korea)

The top level executive of engineering team at Yahoo! Search, Kartik Ramakrishnan, just announced that all Yahoo! Search is now powered by Bing (except in South Korea).  As the Search Alliance’s transitions works have been going on for almost twenty months, today marked the final stage of the project.  Any users who conducted search from desktops or mobile devices thru Yahoo! will see search results from Bing decision engine.

The initial launch to switch from Yahoo to Bing occured in August 2010 for Yahoo’s sites in America and Canada.  The International transitions hit a pause button in late April this year as Yahoo! Search failed to generate enough revenues to please its investors and board of directors.  At that time, former Yahoo’s CEO Bartz was complained about revenue per search (RPS).  Yahoo’s ex-boss was concerned with the way Bing’s adCenter calculated revenues as the total revenues remained below expectations.

Majority of the organic (algorithmic) transition works were completed by early August of this year.  During the month, the Search Alliance team switched organic searches to Bing system in several top European nations include Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.  Later the team switched all searches in countries include New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and India.  By the third week of August this year, the team has switched searches in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and several Arabic speaking countries in Middle East.

(Image: the Search Alliance)

Bing is the platinum sponsor of Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, from October 17 to 19, 2011

The decision engine is the platinum sponsor of Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this year.  The event will be held from October 17 to 19, 2011.  Bing team will showcase their new products and services in several sessions.  At the same event, CEO Steve Ballmer will chit-chat on the stage with John Battelle (Federated Media Publishing) on Tuesday afternoon at around 5:00 o’clock Pacific Time. 

In the morning 9:00am session, Vikram Dendi, Director of Product Management for Bing Translator, presented a topic titled “The Future of Big Data & the Global Web.”   Dendi showed the important of Bing Translator for its partners including Facebook, Trip Advisor, Harper Collins, Elsevier, Webster and eBay.

Images: (left) Web 2.0 Summit logo; (right) Bing

Fast, easy, and save: Google Wallet adds more partners include American Eagle Outfitters, The Container Store, Foot Locker, Guess, Jamba Juice, Macy’s, OfficeMax and Toys“R”Us, as merchants give discounts between 10%-15%

While Bing is busy putting together a great shopping section by adding integrations from Facebook, offering daily deals services, and harnessing deals from local partners, Google added more stores into its Google Wallet’s list of merchants this week. 

The search giant company announced the addition of new partners include American Eagle Outfitters, The Container Store, Foot Locker, Guess, Jamba Juice, Macy’s, OfficeMax and Toys“R”Us.  Google Wallet also added a new "Featured Offers" section where merchants can give users with discounts between 10%-15%.  Google Wallet works only thru Nexus S 4G phones from Sprint.

 

(Click here to watch Google Wallet video)

"Decode Jay-Z with Bing" won gold and silver awards during the “Jay Chiat Awards for Strategic Excellence” in New York City on Thursday night (October 13, 2011)

The decision engine won two awards for online and outdoor campaign dubbed as "Decode Jay-Z with Bing." The two awards were Gold for communications and media strategy and Silver for brand experience.  The honors ceremony occurred at the “Jay Chiat Awards for Strategic Excellence” in New York City on Thursday night, October 13, 2011.   This was part of an annual activity of American Association of Advertising Agencies (aaaa.org).  According to the official website “the Jay Chiat Awards are the first global advertising awards that recognize brilliant strategic thinking.” 

"Decode Jay-Z with Bing" was created by a New York-based advertising agency, Droga 5.  The interactive ads campaign was a partnership between Bing and a popular rapper and celebrity Jay-Z (and also the husband of superstar female singer Beyonce Knowles). 

This past summer the same ads campaign also won a special award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.   Droga 5, the ad agency, won the Grand Prix award for the outdoor category. 

The initial campaign for "Decode Jay-Z with Bing" started on October 18, 2011 and then ended on November 16, 2010.   Bing users visited a special dedicated website (bing.decodejay-z.com) and read thru pages and searching for clues thru a set of unique codes.  Then, they went outside to search more clues from outdoor billboards.  If they found the answers they had to send texting for a chance to win a grand prize.

Image and screenshot: (top) jaychiatawards.com; (bottom) bing.decodejay-z.com

Google gained one notch to 66.12% of all America’s searches, while the Search Alliance Bing and Yahoo share of searches dropped to 28.07% in September 2011

Early this week comScore reported that Google’s share of America’s searches increased slightly to 65.3% shares.  Today, Hitwise also confirmed the same trends.  As per data from Hitwise, Google retained its dominant by capturing 66.12% shares of all searches conducted in America in September 2011, compared to 65.09% shares in August (an increase of 1.03% shares). 

Hitwise is the only web traffic research firm that reported Bing has dropped slightly in September while comScore reported Bing was at a stable level.  According to Hitwise, using data collected for four weeks period ending October 1, 2011, the decision engine accounted for 12.80% of all America’s searches, compared to 13.10% shares in August, or a drop of 0.30% shares.

The Search Alliance combo Bing and Yahoo shares of searches dropped to 28.07% shares in September 2011, compared to 28.99% shares in August, or a drop of 0.92% shares.

With its top management turmoil inside Yahoo! Search and has becoming a top target for takeover by other tech companies and ventures, the Sunnyvale-based company captured only 15.27% shares in September 2011, compared to 15.89% shares in August, or a drop of 0.62% shares.

(Table: Hitwise)

The decision engine to shutdown two unpopular Bing APIs for accessing to content SourceTypes include InstantAnswer and Phonebook residential records

There are two types of Bing Services, Bing API and Bing Maps.  According to MSDN Library, Bing API “provides developers and site managers with flexible, multiple-protocol access to content SourceTypes such as Image, InstantAnswer, MobileWeb, News, Phonebook, RelatedSearch, Spell, Translation, Video, and Web.”  Of all those Bing APIs, the decision engine will shut down two of them include InstantAnswer and Phonebook residential white page records, as per a blog post by Bing team.  This will take effect in about two months from today, exactly on December 8, 2011.  

Bing team didn’t give any reasons for the shutdown of Bing APIs.  However, in recent months the decision engine’s rival Google has also reevaluated their services.  Bing team wrote “…we’re focusing on the right areas for our partners.”

(Logo: Microsoft's MSDN Library)

Bing’s America market share was unchanged at 14.7%, Google's search share climbed to 65.3%, while Yahoo dropped to a new record low level at 15.5% shares

The decision engine maintained its explicit core search share (with user intent) at a stable level during the past two months, August and September.  In term of share of user intent, the twenty eight months old search engine has 14.7% market share in America, as per the latest web traffic data provided by comScore.com.  The Search Alliance combo Bing and Yahoo was at 30.2% shares for September, compared to exactly at 31.0% shares in August (a drop of 0.8% shares).  

Yahoo market share dropped to 15.5% for September, from 16.3% in August (a drop of 0.8% shares).  This was a new record low level for Yahoo Search.  Another piece of bad news in August, Yahoo board of directors fired former CEO Carol Bartz, as the company is now searching for a potential buyer including Bing’s parent Microsoft.

Google's search share moved back to 65.3% in September, compared to 64.8% shares in August (an increase of 0.5%).  One of the reasons was that Google launched Google Plus worldwide during the third week of September which could have brought new web traffic to the site.

BingDeals.com, a new daily deals service with Facebook integration and available in several large cities incl. Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Honolulu, Los Angeles, So. Oregon, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle

 
There is no official announcement of the new daily deals service from the decision engine team yet.  It was first spotted in the wild by TechCrunch this morning.  BingDeals.com domain name is now pointing to www.bing.com/daily-deals.  During the sign up process to receive regular emails for deals, new users must choose between logging to a Microsoft Windows Live ID or a Facebook account.  Given this reason, apparently Bing daily deals could be integrated through the Facebook accounts.

On the beta site, www.bing.com/daily-deals, a pull-down menu shows the daily deals service will be offered in a limited list of large cities including Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth), Honolulu, Los Angeles, Southern Oregon, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. 

The new daily deals system (incl. email system) is a join work between the decision engine and Bing’s hometown Seattle-based vendor, Tippr, as per TechCrunch.  Tippr was founded in February 2010.  This vendor offers white-label group buying platform service.  On the confirmation email from BingDeals.com team, two red-colored hot-links, "Confirm your subscription" and "Privacy Statement" show Tippr servers.

 
Screenshots: (top) bing.com/daily-deals (bottom) https://ssl.bing.com/daily-deals/los-angeles/

Happy family: Bing’s parent acquisition of Skype received approvals from both America and the European Commission

A press release from Microsoft early today showed that the acquisition of Skype had received approvals from both America and the European Commission.  A per Bing’s parent company top legal counsel, Brad Smith, noted “We’re pleased that the European Commission has approved Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype. This is an important milestone, as we’ve now received clearance from both the United States and the European Union.”

The buyout of the world’s largest communication technology system was announced on May 10, 2011.  The deal will be completed within weeks. Bing’s parent will spend at least $8.5 billion in cash for the deal.

Bing is one of the biggest winners of acquiring Skype.   With about 200 million connected users, Skype will boost web traffic to the decision engine and also helping Bing’s partners including Facebook.  Facebook has added Skype’s peer-to-peer features to help the world’s largest social networking 800 million users to communicate among their friends and families.  Facebook recently launched new communication features with enhanced video and voice services using Skype’s network.

Facebook Pages added a new translation tool (powered by Bing Translator) to help the world’s largest social networking users to read public posts

With increasing number of users from non-English speaking countries, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and others, Facebook try to help its users to read public posts in other languages.  The world’s largest social networking launched a new translation tool.  The new tool is powered by Microsoft technology which is also known as Bing Translator.    

For community postings, admins must setup and enable the new tool on public pages.  A new blue-color link “Translate” will show up after “Like” and “Comment” located exactly between the words “Comment” and “Share.” 

For personal pages, they can install Bing Translator app.  Individual users must setup and enable the translation function in order to let their non-English (or vise-versa) friends to read their posts.

 
(Images: Facebook.com/FacebookPages)

With the help of Point Reach, Bing ads campaigns won gold and silver awards from the 2011 IAB MIXX Awards

Two innovative digital campaigns produced by Point Reach, Bellevue, Washington -based company, won gold and silver awards from the 2011 IAB MIXX Awards.  The awards winners were announced during a gala in New York City on Tuesday night October 4, 2011.  This year awards were divided into 25 categories and selecting 62 interactive ads campaigns winners.

Point Reach’s mobile campaigns for the decision engine won in two categories include:

• A gold medal in “Tablet Marketing” category for “Bing for iPad”
• A silver medal in “Mobile Platforms and Apps category for “Bing for Mobile”

 

Images: (top) 2011 IAB MIXX Awards logo; (bottom) pointreach.com Bing for iPad campaign

America’s mobile advertising spending will reach a new record of over $1.2 billion in 2011 and will continue to climb to $4.4 billion by 2015

According to the latest data provided by research firm eMarketer, mobile advertising spending in America will reach over $1.2 billion in 2011 and will continue to hit about $4.4 billion by 2015.  As per data from eMarketer, ad spending via mobile devices including Apple iPhones, iPads, iPods, and Samsung Galaxy tabs and phones running on Google’s Android mobile operating system, will hit $1.23 billion during 2011.

While Apple introduced a new iPhone 4S on October 4, America continues to experience higher smartphone adoption as more users access mobile Internet service thru wireless providers including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile. 

Mobile advertising market has become sweet spot for advertisers.  As per eMarketer, spending on display ads includes banners, rich media and video, as this market will set a new record high in 2015 and will reach about $4.4 billion.

Bing continues to enhance its features to cater for mobile Internet users including launching a special mobile app for iPad, providing daily deals for mobile users, and integrating the decision engine with Facebook.

(Chart: eMarketer)

Bing adds “Autos” section to help users to research new and used cars with features include brand, model, year, safety rating, fuel efficiency, price, and owner reviews

The decision engine added a new “Autos” section for helping users to research new and used cars with features include brand, model, year, price, and fuel efficiency.  The new section will let users to browse new and used cars. 

Other features for the Autos section include safety ratings, owner reviews, videos, comparing price from a list of dealer. 

Bing Autos also allows users to compare one brand of car with others in a similar class, model, and year.

(Screenshot: Bing Autos, keyword search “2011 Porsche Panamera”