Bing gets social networking upgrade as Google mimics Microsoft search engine
This week saw Microsoft roll out an upgrade to Bing which brings social networking updates and trends to the fore. While Google this week spent its time mimicking Bing. Which drew criticism from Google users and taunts from Microsoft execs.
Make no mistake about it, Microsoft Vs. Google is on. While Google is attempting to make a move on Microsoft’s ownership of the operating system market with the forthcoming Chrome OS due to battle Windows, Microsoft is targeting Google’s ubiquitous search engine with Bing.
Bing is still a long way of Google in terms of the number of users, but it’s actually innovating on multiple levels.
On Wednesday at the SMX Advanced conference, Yusuf Mehdi, Bing’s Senior Vice President, unveiled Bing Social. Currently available in beta, Bing Social brings Facebook and Twitter fully into the Bing search experience, with tweets, updates, links, and trending topics taking center stage.
Microsoft makes it clear that only updates from Facebook users happy to share with ‘Everyone’ will appear on Bing.
Meanwhile, this week saw Google attempt to innovate, but things didn’t quite go according to plan. On Thursday (June 10) Goggle’s trademark plain white background was replaced by a succession of images. This was to promote Google’s new feature whereby users can choose their own background image for Google Search.
Sound familiar? It should do, because the Bing homepage has had huge background images since launch. Several Microsoft execs made note of this fact.
Microsoft Europe tweeted, “We’ve lost a background image, if found please return to bing.com.” Ashley Highfield, Microsoft UK Consumer & Online, tweeted, “Imitation (however pale) is the sincerest form of flattery: a certain search engine put up the same pic (tulip fields) used on Bing long ago.” Peter Bale, MSN UK, tweeted, “How intriguing to see friends at Google borrowing the Bing homepage #photography idea. http://google.co.uk http://bing.co.uk.”
Is that how it is now? Bing innovates and Google copies? It seems so.
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