Bing Decision Engine News: Twitter Indexing, Facebook Photo Contest
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.
“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.
