Microsoft has unveiled a major redesign for its search engine Bing, centered around the theme 'Search Goes Social.'
The Next Web explains how the new design will consist of three columns - the standard search column, a snapshot column with data to help you make decisions and a social column pulling in your social graph with the help of Facebook.
Bing isn't just partnering with Facebook though. It announced a series of social partnerships with the following tweet:
Search goes social with the help of our friends: @facebook, @twitter, @linkedin, @quora and @foursquare. #BingSummit
— Bing (@bing) May 10, 2012
It's an apparent knock at Google, which has had rocky relationships with partners like Twitter in the past -- for instance, when it pulled its realtime Twitter integration. In place of partners like Twitter, Google has been playing up its own social network, Google+, which launched last year.
With the redesign, TechCrunch adds that "Microsoft is looking to take advantage of public discontent with Google recent missteps in design and social." Cleverly, Bing is even including Google+ in its new redesign.
Bing has been aggressively experimenting with social and search since launching "Bing Social," which includes Twitter and Facebook integration, as well as the ability to Facebook "like" individual webpages.
The new Bing design will include a sidebar for "What Your Friends May Know." Whatever you search, it will comb through your social connections on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Foursquare and LinkedIn for experts on the topic. It will identify content related to your search query that your friends may have shared in the past and give you the ability to ask your friends questions and see real-time social network activity all from Bing.
SearchEngineLand's Danny Sullivan further outlines the new social features (with screenshots).
Bing's new design isn't live just yet, but it will be rolling out in the coming weeks, but you can learn more about it with the video below.
You can also sign up to be among the first to try the new Bing design here.
WATCH:
Bing fires at Google with new social search
I am convinced Bing is awful -- and I have never used it.Trying to decide if the absurdity of this statement is intentional or not. Normally I would have suspected intentional absurdity, except I see it all the time in tech comments. "The iPhone is perfect, I would never use an Android phone".
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The Huffington Post | By Craig Kanalley Posted: 05/10/2012 2:06 pm Updated: 05/11/2012 1:29 pm