Foursquare Cuts $15M Deal with Microsoft

Foursquare is announcing that it has received $15 million in funding as a result of a partnership with Microsoft. The deal will see Foursquare contributing to the Bing platform’s location and context layers on both Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

The funding will be rolled into Foursquare’s previous raise of $35 million in December, bringing the total to $50 million. In addition, a licensing deal has been struck for the location data, but the financial terms of that haven’t been disclosed.

This is not a simple licensing deal for Foursquare’s location data. Instead, Microsoft will be getting the data and much deeper access to its contextual layers than any third party via Foursquare’s API. Holger Luedorf, Foursquare’s head of business development, tells me that this is a multi-year agreement that includes both data and technical components that will integrate with Microsoft’s Bing platform on both Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

Foursquare will expose more functionality to Microsoft’s team than any other platform has access to. Luedorf says this includes Foursquare’s location targeting system that utilizes phone sensor data to pinpoint user locations and points of interest.



Read the full story >>

2013 Search Year in Review with Bing, Yahoo & Ask.com

By Jessica Lee at Search Engine Watch:

Bing, Yahoo and Ask have each revealed the most-searched people, places and things for 2013, on each of their respective platforms. Hot topics this year include Obamacare, Miley Cyrus and Facebook, to name a few. Let’s have a look at this year’s search in review.


People in 2013

The world is obsessed with stars and their gossip, and the focus of that obsession in 2013 were entertainers like Miley Cyrus (most searched in Yahoo), Beyonce (most searched in Bing) and “North West” – Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s baby (most searched in Ask.com with the question: “Why is Kim and Kanye’s baby named North West?”). Valid question.

Other most-searched celebs across popular engines included:

Amanda Bynes
Justin Bieber
Kim Kardashian

And let’s not forget George Alexander Louis – aka the “Royal Baby” – who became an instant celebrity this year, topping the list of questions at Ask.com in 2013 with the query: “What is the Royal Baby’s name?”


Places in 2013

In 2013, people planned their travel getaways, if only in their dreams, through popular searches on Bing that showed Hawaii as the most sought-after locale by U.S. searchers.

Other top U.S. search destinations:

Travelers around the world had their wish lists, too. Bing shared the top destinations for those searching in other countries across the globe:

Asia = No. 1 destination was Bali
Africa = No. 1 destination was Johannesburg, South Africa
Australia/New Zealand = No. 1 destination was Sydney, Australia
Caribbean = No. 1 destination was Bahamas
Europe = No. 1 destination was London, UK
Middle East = No. 1 destination was Istanbul, Turkey
South America = No. 1 destination was Salvador, Brazil


Is it fair to say Facebook is a destination? I wouldn’t call it a holiday, but it’s definitely a place people went to in 2013, with “Facebook” topping the charts in Bing’s social search query list, along with several other web destinations:

Things in 2013

Aside from celebrity gossip and wanderlust, we’re interested in other things, too – things that matter, like current events and political issues. Top searches across engines included things like Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) at number six on Yahoo and one of the most-asked question at Ask.com: “When will Obamacare take effect?”

Other news stories that made top searches on all three engines for 2013 included the Boston Marathon bombing and George Zimmerman trial.

Of course, current events wouldn't be complete without knowing the latest meme. Bing shared its list of top-searched memes in 2013, with the Harlem Shake taking the top spot:

These search highlights represent a fraction of the moments that captured the attention of people this past year. You can explore further at Yahoo through an interactive, visual-heavy portal that takes you down 2013’s memory lane here.





Via Search Engine Watch 

Twitter And Bing Renew Search Deal

Bing announced today that it has renewed its search deal with Twitter, which provides tweets in search results for a “near real-time” experience.

Bing had this to say in a blog post:

At Bing, we believe that for every search there is somebody out there who can help. That’s why we have been teaming up with Twitter for a few years to surface public tweets from people who may have something to contribute to what you’re trying to get done with Bing.

Whether it’s a politician, celebrity, thought leader or friend, our renewed partnership with Twitter ensures that you have near real-time access to what people are tweeting tailored to what you’re searching for.

Thanks, @Bing! We think it's great that people can tap directly into @twitter from @Bing to get up-to-the-minute information.
— Twitter (@twitter) November 1, 2013

Read the full story >>

#Bing Gets A New Logo, Revamped Interface

Before the launch of Windows 8 last year, Microsoft moved to rebrand all of its products and services with new logos as part of its “One Microsoft” campaign. At the time, Bing wasn’t one of the services to get a new logo, but now that’s finally changing.

Microsoft announced today that it’s launching a brand new Bing complete with a new logo. Check it out:

Scott Erickson, Senior Director, Brand and Creative, said in a blog post that the new logo came from Microsoft’s desire to move Bing beyond the traditional search page. The new Bing logo represents a search engine that Microsoft hopes will be everything to everyone – from traditional Web search to instant translations using Windows Phone.


Read the full story >>

#Bing Redesigns Video Search

Bing just announced a big redesign of its video search feature, which it says has been redesigned from the ground up. Changes include navigational improvements, video overlays, pop-out previews, bigger thumbnails and new filters.

“Rather than making you travel to a site to see if a video is the one you’re looking for, we updated our preview mode so now you can simply roll the cursor over the video thumbnail to see a short preview,” Bing’s video search team says in a blog post. “We also expanded the information displayed about a video to speed up your search and now show favicons from the top sites, view counts, descriptions, and bold your search terms in the titles. Additionally, we’ve added a control for our previews so you can adjust the volume level of the preview playback.”

Read the full story >>

#INFOGRAPHIC: The Power of Bing Ads

By Dave Rigotti - MSFT  at Bing Ads Community:
As David Pann said earlier this year, the positive momentum continues for Bing Ads and the Yahoo! Bing Network. From Sitelinks to reporting enhancements to global expansion, we’re excited to share this infographic on the Power of Bing Ads. Not a customer? Sign up here!

The Power of Bing Ads infographic

Klout Gets Into The Q&A Business By Launching Klout Experts

By Anthony HA at TechCrunch: 

So what does a high Klout score actually get you? The influence-measuring startup already offers prizes through its Klout Perks program, and there are bragging rights (unless your friends think you’re a loser for caring about your Klout score). Now Klout is asking users who are influential on a given topic to answer short, factual questions through the new Klout Experts program.

It sounds like the program won’t be rolled out to every user today, but when it is, you might Klout and be prompted to answer a question like “What is the best way to care for tulips?” or “What is the best place to take your date in the city?” You’ll have 300 characters with which to offer your answer. (Why 300? Co-founder and CEO Joe Fernandez said 140 characters isn’t always enough, but he wanted to keep the answers direct and to the point.)

Fernandez told me that Klout is working closely with Bing on this feature, so if there are relevant answers on Klout, they’ll be featured prominently when people search for a given question on Bing. Fernandez said the search engine team is also suggesting future questions that Klout could ask its users. At the same time, while Klout doesn’t have the same cozy relationship with Google, the answers should show up there, too.

For now, Fernandez said he expects most of the Klout Experts traffic to come from Bing, but you can also browse the content on the Klout site itself. The company will be highlighting recent answers from your friends. Fernandez also suggest the on-site experience will improve over time. For one thing, he said users’ various answers to a single question are currently being sorted on a single page by human editors, but Klout is working on a voting system where people can endorse the answers they like — though you can only vote if you’re influential on that topic.

Fernandez suggested that this could eventually integrate with Perks and Klout for Business — for example, businesses could start asking their own questions and offer Perks for good answers.

When he described the new feature to me, I asked if people might think he was basically turning Klout’s user base into a content farm. Fernandez countered that these answers are going to be tied to people’s real identities, and emphasized that they won’t be able to post unless they’ve got a good score.

“What we’re good at is understanding the quality of engagement,” he said, adding that Klout scores are “a really good fitness function” for ensuring that people will create high-quality, useful content.

But why is Klout getting into this business at all? Well, Fernandez argued that Klout has become “the standard” in measuring online influence, so now it can start building other applications and uses on top of that system. Klout Experts is the first example of that.

“Influence and reputation is our platform,” he said.

Nonetheless, he also acknowledged that creating the feature has been a bit of a shift, pushing Klout to hire people who have more experience on the editorial side and with user-generated content: “How do we get people from Yelp versus Google Analytics?”

The Experts program is currently focused on technology, food, music and travel. You can view some sample answers here and here and sign up for early access here.

Yahoo Wants Out of Microsoft Search Deal

Yahoo and Microsoft may have just extended their revenue-per-search guarantee, but Yahoo has apparently been trying to escape its 10-year search deal with Microsoft in order to join forces with Google, according to reports.

Yahoo and Microsoft struck their search agreement in July 2009 with expectations that the partnership may allow both firms to rival Google in the search market. Under the terms of the deal Microsoft's Bing powers Yahoo search, while Yahoo uses its solid relationship with advertisers to be the salesforce for both companies.

However a Bloomberg report said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been unsuccessful in her attempts to get out of the agreement for almost a year.

According to the report, Mayer has already met with her previous employer Google and agreed to enter an alternative search partnership if the Microsoft agreement can be concluded. Yahoo was rumored to be seeking a switch to Google even before Mayer was CEO.

Read the full story >>

Bing Adds Klout As An Influencer and Vice Versa

By Thom Craver at Search Engine Watch:
Klout and Bing have teamed up to include Klout Scores and influential topics into the Social Sidebar. After performing a Bing search, the "People Who Know" section of the Social Sidebar will now include people Klout believes to be influential about the topic you searched.

Bing believes this will help people connect with the right experts. From the pop-up that appears, you can click through to the influencer's Klout Profile or directly to topics the person influences.

Conversely, over on Klout, some people will notice new items to their Klout profile, courtesy of Bing. Klout will measure two data points from Bing that will be showcased in the "Moments" area.
Influences who appear more often in the Social Sidebar as a result of Search will be recognized for it on Klout. According to the Klout blog, if you have linked your Wikipedia account on Klout, your "profile will also be rewarded for the frequency [you] are searched on Bing." Klout also announced they will continue to add signals generated from Bing searches.



Read the full story here

Use Bing To Search Friends’ Facebook Photos

By Justin Lafferty at AllFacebook:
The Bing-Facebook integration continues to deepen. The Microsoft search engine announced Thursday that you can now use the site to search friends’ photos.


No, this doesn’t mean those embarrassing photos from spring break are open for the general public to see on Bing. When you visit the site, you can only search for your friends’ photos that have been made viewable. Bing explains that now users don’t have to mine through profiles or try to guess who uploaded a photo. It makes it easier to find just what users are looking for:

Looking for that epic shot from last winter’s ski trip?  Or the I-could-die-laughing photo of your roommate’s cat dancing? With more than 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook per day, photo viewing is one of the most popular things people do on Facebook. Bing now lets you quickly find that special photo (out of your friends’ thousands) on Facebook with the new Friends’ Photo feature. Now, with Bing, you can easily search and browse your friends’ photo collections–whether you’re looking for a specific moment, or just want to see what your friends have been up to at www.bing.com/friendsphotos.

Read the full story here

INFOGRAPHIC: How People Spend Their Time Online

Have you ever wondered what a normal Internet user do? How do people spend their time online. What are the most popular Internet activities. What are the most visited websites? Or on What websites People Spend most of their time
This Infographic is Designed and brought to you by Go-Gulf.com

 

Microsoft pays to put Bing on Facebook logout page

By Emil Protalinski at ZDnet:
Microsoft is paying Facebook to be the first customer of the social networking giant’s new logout page ad unit. The result is an interactive Bing search page when you logout of Facebook.
Microsoft is Facebook’s first customer for the company’s new logout ads. When you logout of Facebook, you could soon be greeted with an interactive Bing ad: you’ll see Bing’s trademark wallpaper photo as well as an active search box, which opens a Bing search results page in a separate tab when you search for something. TechCrunch reader Raj Singh already has it on his Facebook logout page.
Earlier this week, Facebook introduced new advertising options for its customers. The first is Offers, a way to share special discounts and promotions. The second consists of two new placements for premium advertising and Sponsored Stories: both can now appear on the Facebook logout Page and the mobile News Feed. While mobile news feed ads are already available, logout page ads are supposed to go live in April. Clearly some people are already seeing the latter.
It makes sense for Microsoft to be Facebook’s first customer of the new logout page ad unit. After all, the two are long-time partners. In October 2007, Microsoft bought a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook for about $240 million, giving Facebook a valuation of $15 billion. Ever since then, the two companies have been best friends and have worked together on many different products, although now it’s just mainly Bing (see links below). Microsoft even provided display ads for Facebook at one point, but that deal has since expired and Facebook now competes with Microsoft in the online advertising market.
When the logout ads were announced on Wednesday, here’s what I wrote:

Logout ads seem bizarre to me because I’m always logged into the social network. Still, Facebook says 37 million U.S. users logout of the service each day and 105 million do so per month (out of 161 million monthly active U.S. Facebook users as of December 2011). Plus, and there’s no other engaging content on the logout page to distract them from the ads.

Microsoft clearly agrees with Facebook more than I do. I have contacted Facebook for more information and will update you if I hear back.
Update at 4:30 PM PST: “We don’t discuss the terms of ad agreements,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

comScore: Bing Takes No. 2 Spot From Yahoo in December 2011

By John Rampton at SearchEngineWatch: 
Bing is finally the No. 2 search engine in the U.S., according to the latest figures from comScore. Bing which launched in June 2009 with an 8.4 percent search engine market share, now accounts for 15.1 percent of searches.
As Yahoo dropped to third, Google continued to lead all search engines in December with 65.9 percent market share.
The search engine rankings for December 2011, according to comScore, were:

• Google rose to 65.9 percent (up from 65.4 percent in November). 
• Bing rose to 15.1 percent (up from 15 percent in November). 
• Yahoo dropped to 14.5 percent (down from 15.1 percent). 
• Ask remained at 2.9 percent. 
• AOL remained at 1.6 percent

More than 18.2 billion explicit core searches were conducted in December. This is up 2 percent from November. Google lead the way with 12 billion of the total searches; Bing ended up with 2.7 billion, followed close by Yahoo with 2.6 billion. Ask Network with 531 million searches, followed by AOL with 287 million.
In December, 68.1 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while Bing powered around 26.5 percent of searches.

Google Search Stays 65% Course, Bing Closes on Yahoo

Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) search market share rose slightly to 65.6 percent in the U.S. through October, from 65.3 percent through September (NASDAQ: SCOR), according to new research from comScore.
The search leader grew share a tad, two months after falling to 64.8 percent in August, which was its lowest since September 2009. Google has consistently blanketed the 65 percent search share market for a few years, one reason it is under antitrust scrutiny by the Justice Department.
Yahoo's (NASDAQ:YHOO) share fell to 15.2 percent for the month from 15.5 percent, marking a new low for the embattled Internet company, which just made a big bet on its Livestand magazine and IntoNow TV applications for Apple's iPad tablet.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing, which powers Yahoo on the back end, edged up to 14.8 percent share, from 14.7 percent through September. At this pace, Bing should pass Yahoo in early 2012. Either way, Bing currently drives 30 percent of search engine results, or less than half as much as Google enjoys.
Google has made a couple of improvements to its search engine in the last 30 days.
In October, the company began redirecting most users signed into their Google accounts to the HTTPS version of Google.com, which encrypts search queries and results.
With search becoming more personalized—that is, tailored to specific users' preferences based on their previous searches—Google said it has become more important to shore up search results directed to users.
Google earlier this month tweaked its algorithm to bring more freshness to 35 percent of search results, including for hot topics and recurring events.
The move is aimed at helping Google better compete with some of the fresher content pouring throughout Facebook and Twitter.

By: Clint Boulton at eWeek

Google, Bing & Yahoo's New Schema.org Creates New Standards for Web Content Markup

The Web's three leading search companies are announcing today a new collaboration called Schema.org, where more than 100 new types of website markup for content like movies, music, organizations, TV shows, products, places and more will allow search engines to better understand and present what they find on the pages that show up in search results. Yahoo announced the project first today on its Yahoo Search Blog and said it was reminiscent of all three search companies collaborating to create the sitemap concept.