bing

Microsoft is trying to make it easier to find nearby deals, and today has launched a deals service that aggregates them from around the Web.

Bing Deals, which will show up for both desktop and m.bing.com users, aggregates deals from a number of deal providers, including LivingSocial, Groupon, and Restaurant.com. On the mobile side, when combined with a phone's real-time location, this lets users see which of the deals from those services are nearby.

The technology itself is a partnership with deals aggregation site The Dealmap. All told, Microsoft says Bing Deals adds up to more … Read more

Microsoft says the feature that highlights Facebook activity around some of Bing's search results has been "extended" to include any and all URLs.

The company announced the expansion in a blog post earlier today, saying that this integration was just "part of a longer journey," and that it played a complimentary role to the company's efforts in adding a social layer to is results, as it did with Twitter.

"This is the first time in human history that people are leaving social traces that machines can read and learn from, and present enhanced … Read more

Microsoft has cooked up a new version of its Bing software toolbar that the company thinks can change the minds of toolbar haters.

"I know what you're saying to yourself--'really, a tool bar?'" Bing Director Stefan Weitz joked to me in an interview last week. Weitz mused that when he had first heard the pitch about it, his first response had been "are we doing dial-up too?"

But Weitz was pleasantly surprised with the results of the new version of the software, and so were the testers who tried it during the new version'… Read more

Though Google is still king of the U.S. search engine market, the company saw its share drop slightly in January, while Bing continued to pick up more steam, according to ComScore.

For the first month of 2011, the market researcher said Friday, Google's share of all searches dropped by 1 percentage point to 65.6 percent. At the same time, Bing's share crept up by 1.1 point to reach 13.1 percent. That left Yahoo pretty much flat with a 16.1 percent cut of all searches for January.

Those numbers follow a pattern that's … Read more

Though Google is still king of the search engine arena, Bing is creeping up, according to a report released yesterday by market researcher Experian Hitwise.

Looking at the global search engine market in January, Google took home almost 68 percent of all searches. But that marked a 2 percentage point dip from December. The number of searches run at Bing.com and Bing-powered sites collectively rose by 6 points, giving Microsoft's search engine a 27.4 percent cut of the market.

Breaking down the Bing results, Bing.com by itself accounted for 12.8 percent of all searches, a … Read more

Microsoft's search engine will be one of the major Web sites available in a synchronized effort to iron out problems moving to a vastly more spacious Internet based on the coming IPv6 standard.

"On June 8, we will enable worldwide IPv6 connectivity to Bing.com, for the purposes of a one-day test," Bing program manager Kevin Boske said. "Consumers with IPv6 Internet capabilities will automatically access this new method of connectivity. This necessitates both a device that supports IPv6 (like a Windows 7 PC), and support from your Internet provider."

IPv6, or Internet Protocol version … Read more

Microsoft wants to make it very clear that Bing is no copycat.

"I want to make sure you understand that we were not copying results from any of our competitors, period," Bing Director Stefan Weitz told CNET in an interview this afternoon. "It's almost insulting a little bit, because we've got all these guys and gals that are working their butts off to do this, and it's categorically not accurate. It's an illogical statement to make," he said.

Following yesterday's claims by Google that Microsoft had been copying the company's … Read more

Following yesterday's fracas over whether Microsoft was culling search results from rival Google, Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's senior VP of its Online Services Division, has weighed in, reiterating that Google's claims are false.

"We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop," Mehdi said in a post on Bing's community blog titled "Setting the record straight."

"We have some of the best minds in the world at work on search quality and relevance, and for a competitor to accuse any one of these people of such activity is … Read more

Is Microsoft copying Google's search results? Probably: but how bad is that, really? Or is it just smart? Plus, the ISP conflict of interest nightmare scenario comes to pass in Canada, and it's bad news for everyone. Are you watching, DOJ? Plus, a lawsuit accuses AT&T of overcharging for data, and petri meat is coming, people. You just wait. --Molly