New Bing
Microsoft has been grabbing tiny, incremental chunks of market-share from Google with its Bing ‘decision engine' since its launch ten months ago, but then it should with all the money Microsoft's been chucking at advertising it. But Microsoft has realized the only way it's going to seriously take on Google is by providing something different enough to provide clear choice.
In a recent blog post, Bing's Todd Schwartz talks about "new stuff coming from Bing this spring". Microsoft is thinking of making a more major feature out of its Quick Tabs, which try to anticipate subsequent searches after the initial one.
Both Bing and Google are already including Twitter content in their results, but Bing is going to include ‘most popular shared links' from Twitter. Also it will be augmenting its Bing Maps service with geographically tagged social content. It previewed a new map app that brings location-based social networking information from the foursquare service to its Silverlight maps.
We're not sure if this sheds much light on the user experience, but here's what Schwartz had to say about it: "The foursquare map app is a powerful combination of the spatial canvas that Bing Maps provides, combined with foursquare's user reputation service ability to see who has unlocked specific badges, where and who has been crowned mayor of certain locations making it easier to explore any city in the world as if you were a local."
