Bing Watch . . . Just Bing It!

Bing’s partner fires another salvo at Bing’s friend: Yahoo adds two more allegations of patent infringement against Facebook

As everyone heading to this weekend vacation, going to party or attending Sunday’s services, it appears that Yahoo and Facebook cannot get along in Silicon Valley.  This two technology companies should be able to solve their issues this weekend if both will pay a visit to a local church service and read Luke 6:29: "Whoever hits you on the cheek, offers him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either.” (New American Standard Bible, 1995).  However, a trip to the prayer altar will be too far from happening.

Yahoo! submitted additional paperwork against Facebook in America’s District Court located in San Jose.  Based on the document, the latest allegations of patent infringement against the world’s largest social networking related to two patents.  Several tech bloggers (i.e.,  thenextweb.com) showed the two new claims include U.S. Patent No. 7,933,903 on a “System and Method to Determine the Validity of and Interaction on a Network” and U.S. Patent No. 7,698,315 on a “System and Method Allowing Advertisers to Manage Search Listings in Pay for Placement Search System Using Grouping.”

In order to fight back Yahoo’s claims, Facebook spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire patents from IBM and Bing’s parent in the past one month.  Early this week, Facebook bought a portion of Bing’s parent patent portfolio that was acquired from AOL in early April.

America’s top 50 Internet properties in March 2012: Google sites (incl. Google.com, YouTube) ranked as #1, Microsoft sites (incl. Bing, MSN) were at #2, Yahoo! sites captured #3 spot, and Facebook.com was at #4

Internet users in America including users who accessing from homes, offices, and colleges and universities, flocked into college basketball tournament and Lotto-related sites as Mega Millions jackpot surpassed $650 million in March’s drawing.  Many users visited Lotto sites to check out their tickets and expected to grab the winning ticket.

Based on the March’s data provided by comScore, there were 224,020,000 unique visitors in America during the month of March, compared to February which totaled 219,988,000 unique visitors, or an increase of 2%. 

Google sites retained its number one spot with 189.7 million visitors in March.  Google sites include Google.com, Google Plus, YouTube, Gmail, and others.

The number two spot was held by Microsoft sites which comprises of Bing, MSN, and Microsoft.com, as Bing’s family captured 178.9 million visitors in March.  Then, followed by two Microsoft’s partners including Yahoo! and Facebook.com.  Yahoo! sites captured 175.4 million visitors in March.  Facebook.com has only one site and captured 158.9 million visitors.

Click here to download a full report from comScore (in .pdf format)

(Table: comScore)

Doing a friend a favor: Bing’s parent lets Facebook to buy a portion of the patent portfolio that was acquired from AOL two weeks ago

Two weeks ago Bing’s parent secured a deal to buy a patent portfolio of over 800 patents from AOL.  The portfolio has a price tag of $1.056 billion.  This morning Bing’s parent granted its best friend a favor by selling 650 AOL patents and patent applications.  Facebook will have full ownership of those 650 patents by reimbursing Microsoft’s nice job with a paycheck of $550 million in cash.

After the transaction with Facebook, Bing’s parent will keep ownership of about 275 AOL patents and applications.  The giant software company will also have exclusive license to the 650 AOL patents and applications that had just sold to Facebook.  While both companies will share 300 patents that AOL decided to keep after the auction on April 9.   Those 300 patents are related advertising, search, content generation and management, and social networking.

6% versus 6%: Bing’s Online Services Division reported revenue of $707 million, or an increase of 6% over one year ago, while its parent company revenue also has an increase of 6% over the same quarter one year ago

It was so coincident, both Bing’s division and Bing’s parent revenues for Q3- Fiscal 2012 (January to March, 2012) experienced an increase of 6% over the same quarter one year ago. 

During Q3-F12, Bing’s parent generated revenue of $17.41 billion, compared to the same quarter one year ago, it generated $16.43 billion.  This was an increase of 6% from the prior year period. The company also reported a very healthy operating income which was at $6.37 billion, or an increase of 12% from the same quarter one year ago.

Bing’s division reported revenue of $707 million in Q3-Fiscal 2012, or an increase of 6% over one year ago.  Bing's operating loss has narrowed to $479 million, or a drop of $300 from the same quarter one year ago.  Bing’s division generated a total of $667 million in Q3-Fiscal 2011 with a total loss of $776 million. 

Bing’s division revenue reached its peak in Q2-F12 (October to December, 2011), as the Online Services Division generated a total of $784 million.

(Source of data: Microsoft)

$31 billion and counting: 2011’s online advertising revenues increased 22% over 2010’s full-year revenues, as mobile ads is gaining momentum

Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released a new report for 2011’s online advertising revenues.  The report was prepared independently by PricewaterhouseCoopers.  It appears that more companies are now aggressively using their ads dollars to pay for online advertising.  While search engines are the dominant force, there are also more methods of ads delivery including via mobile platforms and digital video.  Click here to download a full report (in .pdf format)

In term of quarterly comparison, Q4-2011 generated a total of $8.97 billion or an increase of 14.7% over Q3-2011 which was at $7.82 billion.  In term of four quarters comparison, it was an increase of 20.4% over Q4-2010 which was at $7.45 billion. 

In 2011, search engines taking about 46.5% of all online advertising revenues, or totaled $14.8 billion.  Compared to 2010, search engines took about 44.8% of all online ads or totaled $11.6 billion.  2011’s online advertising revenues for search engines increased 27% over 2010.

In 2011, mobile advertising has the best overall growth and increased to $1.6 billion.  Mobile ads contributed about 5% of all online advertising revenues in 2011, compared to 2010, mobile took about 2.5% of all online ads or totaled $641 million. 

(Image: Interactive Advertising Bureau)

Bing Rewards offers two new sweepstakes as users will have a chance to win one of five Nokia Lumia 900s plus $200 activation fee with AT&T, and an Xbox 360 console with Kinect

Bing Rewards added two new sweepstakes that will end in two weeks from today, exactly on May 1 (Tuesday).  The first option, users will have a chance to win one of five Nokia Lumia 900s that run on the new Windows Phone operating system from Bing’s parent company.  Bing team is also very generous by giving away $200 activation fee with AT&T, a wireless network company who provides 4G LTE connectivity.  Nokia Lumia 900 was launched during the weekend of Easter Day in America on April 8, 2012.  This option requires 20 Rewards credits.

The second option, only one winner will receive an Xbox 360 console with Kinect bundling with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13.  The winner will also receive a 12 month Xbox 360 LIVE Gold membership. This option requires 40 Rewards credits.

(Image: Nokia Lumia 900)

Bing releases a Translator App for Windows Phone which can translate printed text by using phone’s camera, translate spoken text by voice, and translate text by type-in using phone’s keyboard

Taking advantages of its own research labs products and then merging them with some other sources, Bing released a very sophisticated Translator App for Windows Phone.  The new smartphone app for Windows Phone operating system is free while it can help users to translate printed text by using phone’s camera.  This feature can translate street signs, restaurant menus, newspapers, magazines, by pointing a phone’s camera onto an object.

The Translator App can hear a native speaker to speak in their own accent and then translate word or phrase.  To activate this feature, user's phone required to connect to a network.

When users are not connected to a network, users can also use phone’s keyboard to type-in text which then translate into another language.  By turning off the network, the Translator App can be used to translate books, text, and images.  The app is also best for learning a foreign language.

(Image: Windows Phone Marketplace)

4 x 4 = 16: Bing partners with Foursquare to offer sweepstakes for a chance to win one of six Nokia Lumia 900 smartphones (value at about $500 each), promotion will start from 9:00am to 11:59pm Pacific Time on Monday, April 16, 2012

Bing partners with Foursquare to celebrate “Foursquare Day” on April 16.  This special day was created in 2010 to attract more users using the social media all over the world.  The sweepstakes will run only one day, from 9:00am to 11:59pm Pacific Time on Monday, April 16, 2012.  The official rules showed that only adult who live in America can join the sweepstakes.

Contestants must first follow Bing on Foursquare.   Then, users must propagate six official Foursquare Day events via Twitter (please use hashtag #Bing4sq), including in Los Angeles (@LA4sq), San Francisco (@4sqdaySF), Seattle (@4sqSeattle), Atlanta (@4sqATL), Houston (@FoursquareHOU), and Portland, Oregon (@4sqDayPDX).

As of Friday morning April 13, Bing has 65,735 Foursquare followers and 199,091 Twitter followers.  We will check the number of followers for both social media after the sweepstakes ended at mid-night of April 16, 2012.

Images: (top) Bing Foursquare and (bottom) Bing Twitter

Admit one search ticket: the cost of Bing Search API will start at $40 per month for maximum 20,000 search queries per month

Bing team announced that the number two search engine in America will soon start charging developers for access to its Bing Search API.  The cost of one search ticket will start at $40 per month for maximum 20,000 search queries per month.  As Bing remained at number two ranking in America’s search engine market with over 15% share, the latest move on Bing’s part could also mean the end of developers using the API.  Instead of paying Bing, developers could move their API to the number one search engine Google which in late last year had transitioned to a paid model.

While Bing Search API will be free for the next few weeks, Bing team urged developers to start testing the API using the cloud-powered site via Windows Azure Marketplace.  The team also warned developers that they will soon shutdown Bing Search API 2.0., so everyone must have a paid ticket to access Bing Search API.

(Image: Windows Azure Marketplace logo)

Unchanged: Bing continued to maintain at 15.3% share of search engine market in America while Google was also at a steady level with 66.4% share in March 2012

The latest comScore's data for search engine market is now available via businessinsider.com.  Bing’s share was unchanged from February to March 2012, at 15.3% share. 

Yahoo dropped slightly to 13.7% share in March, compared to 13.8% share in February (or a drop of 0.1% share).

The Search Alliance combo captured a total of 29.0% share in March, compared to 29.1% share in February.

Google also hold 66.4% share for the past two months in a row. 

You've got patents: Bing’s parent pays $1.056 billion in cash for 800 AOL patents related to browser technology and to enhance its existing portfolio

The pioneer of Internet service provider to million households in America during the early 1990s and the maker of email system with its popular moniker “You’ve Got Mail” AOL Inc. announced that they have sold more than 800 patents to Bing’s parent company. The price tag for the deal is $1.056 billion in cash.  Both companies expected the deal to close by the end of 2012.  While AOL will let go 800 patents, the company will still keep over 300 patents related advertising, search, content generation and management, social networking, and others.

According to Peter Kafka of AllThingsD, the new addition of hundreds of patents to Microsoft’s existing portfolio is related to Internet browsing technology, mostly from AOL’s subsidiary Netscape.  The last browser known as Netscape Navigator 9 was released by AOL in October 2007, but not many users downloaded the software as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer controlled about 80% of the browser market at that time.  AOL announced to quit browser business during the last week of December 2007.  Later, AOL announced that February 1, 2008 was the last day the company will support the browser.

Several tech bloggers believe that Bing’s parent beat out its rival Google in the auction.  Google has strong interest in the 800 patents as its bowser Chrome is also picking up market share from competitors including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and others.

Bing search box for desktop (beta version) is available for download, as it will get auto-update with the popular Bing homepage image

Early this week Bing released a search box for desktop users, so they do not need to open a browser to conduct search.  The search box also features the popular homepage image and will get auto-update on daily basis.  All they need now is to download Bing Desktop software (version 1.0.4).  For the beta version, users must have desktops with Windows 7 operating system to take advantage of the new tool.  After downloaded and installed into users’ machine, users can easily access Bing search box to conduct search faster.  Bing also warned users that the software will update automatically thru Microsoft Update.

(Image: Bing search box)

Fourth of April is the decision day for Bing’s search alliance partner Yahoo, as the search engine pioneer company is planning to announce the layoffs during the Wall Street market opening in the morning

In conjunction with last week’s rumor that Bing’s search alliance will cut thousands of jobs in Q2-2012 and mostly will occur in product, research, and marketing divisions, two prominent Silicon Valley insiders, Kara Swisher of All Things D and Sarah Lacy of PandoDaily, have published two new posts regarding the upcoming change in the search pioneer company.  Yahoo will likely to begin the cuts in the morning hours during Wall Street stock market opening on Wednesday around 6:30am Pacific Time, April 4.

Swisher believes that the cuts will impact heavily on the product division which is led by Blake Irving.  Irving joined Yahoo about two years ago as he previously worked at Bing’s parent company for about 15 years.  Lacy believes that the big cuts will occur in the International division (including in Asia).  Swisher wrote that the first round of layoffs will get rid of about 2,000 employees.  More rounds of layoffs will occur over the months to come.