Facebook Friends Now Fueling Faster Decisions on Bing, Bing Community (May 17, 2011)
I wasn't paying attention to Bing's move to social search last year. Bing calls using social networks in ranking results the "friend effect".
Research tells us that 90% of people seek advice from family and friends as part of the decision making process. This “Friend Effect” is apparent in most of our decisions and often outweighs other facts because people feel more confident, smarter and safer with the wisdom of their trusted circle. A movie critic may pan the latest summer block buster, but your friends say it’s the feel good movie of the year, so you ignore the critic and go (and wholeheartedly agree). Historically, search hasn’t incorporated this “Friend Effect” – and 80% of people will delay making a decision until they can get a friend’s stamp of approval. This decision delay, or period of time it takes to hunt down a friend for advice, can last anywhere from a few minutes to days, whether you’re waiting for a call back, text, email or tweet.
Also - Bing starts using Facebook 'likes' in search, AP via CBC (May 17, 2011)
Bing describes social search at http://social.discoverbing.com/
This seems to be only in the United States - not in Canada. The key test is to click on Sign In in the upper right. In the US, you'll see options for Windows Live and Facebook. In Canada, it takes you directly to Windows Live.
Posted by Gwen at January 26, 2012 06:36 PM