Bing Ties Up Tighter with Facebook, Research Buzz (Feb 8)
Bing supplies the search function at Facebook. Run a search - get pages created by organizations or individuals, names of groups, and then web results.
"Bing’s Web search integration will be extended to outside the US, covering all of Facebook’s 400 million users, and Bing will soon be integrating additional features into its Facebook Web results".
Tara Calishain sees an immediate advantage in searching for recipes - where she hopes Bing's new "rich answers" will come through - "So I can search on Facebook for red beans and rice and get fan pages, groups, and recipes!"
I had to check what Facebook can do for muffin recipes - and sure enough there is a page from the Muffin Man, an astonishing 43 groups concerned in some way with muffins, and the familiar page of search results from Bing. Naturally, Facebook had some sponsored results as well - Betty Crocker was in the mix.
This is Bing's social move. In its posting to the Bing Community on "Enhanced Cooperation with Facebook on Search" (requires joining the group to read) it said --
"As you know, Bing has been very focused on helping customers make important decisions. We believe that counsel from family and friends can be a big part of that process. Going deeper in web search experiences with Facebook, in addition to the collaboration we announced last October about bringing public data from Facebook’s API into the search experience, will enable us to do great things together for our customers."
Expect to hear more from Bing.
Posted by Gwen at February 8, 2010 12:54 PM