By George Norman - Software News Editor
Added on 02 Jul 2009(621 Views)




Bing, the search engine that Microsoft wants you to call a decision engine instead, once again makes the headlines with two interesting news stories. The first news story refers to the fact that Bing, with the goal of providing realtime search and immediacy of data to the user, has started to index Twitter. What this means is that if you search for a person’s name and add “Twitter” to the query, the search results that Bing will provide include tweets from that person.

“We’re unveiling an initial foray into integrating more real time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres. This includes Tweets from folks from our own search technology and business sphere like Danny Sullivan or Kara Swisher as well as those from spheres of more general consumer appeal like Al Gore or Ryan Seacrest,” explained General Manager with the Search Technology Center, Sean Suchter.


To put it bluntly, when you use Bing to search for “Kara Swisher Twitter” or “Kara Swisher Tweets” or perhaps “@karaswisher” you will be presented with Kara Swisher’s latest tweet at the top of the search results. For the time being Bing will index only the most prominent and prolific Twitterers.

The second news story the we need to report is about the new photo submission contest Bing launched on Facebook. This is the first photo submission contest that Bing has launched and the goal is to get users to send in summer travel-inspired images; one image will be selected and used as Bing’s background image.

Bing Editorial Lead, Stephanie Horstmanshof, explains: “We continue to hear that one the favorite features of Bing is the rich and interactive daily image that appears on the Bing homepage. In fact, one of the questions we get asked the most is whether people can submit their own pictures. And now we can say yes! We've launched our first ever photo submission contest on Facebook. The theme is “summer travel,” and the winner will have his or her photo displayed on the Bing homepage on Monday, August 3rd.





Don't forget to:

RSS


Tags: Microsoft, Bing, Search engine, Decision engine, Twitter, Facebook

Link to this article:


Comments

Chris R - 02 Jul 2009 19:53
This comes as welcome news. The thought of one company being a near monopoly is not very comforting.

Add comment:
Name(Required)
Email(Required - Never shown)
Website(Optional)
Comment(Required):

Insert the following code:
Software News
Wolfram Alpha App 1.1 with Better Specialized Keyboards
The team behind computational knowledge engine Wolfram Alpha announced the release of an iPhone specific app last year, in October. The one thing that people complained about at the time...
09 Feb 2010
Linus Shows Nexus One Some Love, Google Shows Nexus One Users Some Love
Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, says that when he got the original Google Phone, the G1, he was unimpressed. At the time Google gave him the device – that what I meant by “he got the G1”. Linus, who says...
09 Feb 2010
Google Superbowl Ad Draws Attention to the Need for Privacy
Back in January, on International Data Privacy Day, Mountain View-based search engine giant drew attention to its guiding privacy principles. In case you’re not familiar with...
09 Feb 2010
Free Software Alert: EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition 5.0.1
The latest release of EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition is version 5.0.1, and the company that developed the software is now giving it away for free. But you need to hurry up. This is a time limited offer...
09 Feb 2010
MSN Games and Windows Live Messenger Welcome FarmVille
The short description of FarmVille is this: “FarmVille is a game where you can farm with your friends.” Basically you get a plot of land and you have to plant crops, harvest them, make money to buy...
09 Feb 2010
Bill Cosby Is Not Dead, Just the Victim of Malware Spreaders
It’s the Kanye West and Johnny Depp story all over again. People with malicious intent have started a rumor that popular comedian and actor Bill Cosby, 72, died of natural causes, in his chair at home....
09 Feb 2010
Recommended Tools
Top Downloads