Microsoft really likes Facebook on Bing
It’s cute when companies buddy up to one another, even if it is purely to further their own ends.
Everyone needs friends, whether they be real-life friends, virtual friends, or just people you can hang out with from time to time. Microsoft has a virtual friend in Facebook, and while I’m not sure whether they drink together or not, they get along rather well. So well, in fact, that Microsoft is increasing the amount of time it spends fostering the friendship.
Microsoft and Facebook have been friends since 2007 when the former invested $240 million in the latter. For that money Microsoft gained 1.6 percent of Facebook and the ability to serve display adverts on the social networking site. Bing then took over Web search on Facebook, starting in the U.S. before taking over in providing search for the world.
At the end of 2010 this friendship became a veritable love-in, with elements of Facebook integrated into Bing. Liked Results and Facebook Profile Search saw the two companies forging ever closer links between search and social networking.
Liked Results has now been improved and expanded as a feature. Bing was already showing links specific to your Facebook friends and their preferences within search results, but now all results on any given Bing search will display which of your Facebook friends liked that link. For example, search for ‘Italian Restaurants’ and the results will show up as normal, but you’ll be able to see which (if any) of your Facebook friends has liked a particular restaurant.
As Lawrence Kim of the Bing Social team puts it:
This is the first time in human history that people are leaving social traces that machines can read and learn from, and present enhanced online experiences based on those traces. As people spend more time online and integrate their offline and online worlds, they will want their friends’ social activity and their social data to help them in making better decisions.
Assuming you share at least some of the same interests and similar tastes as your Facebook friends then this feature should prove useful. If you don’t then I suggest you find some new friends rather than a new search engine. Because Bing is becoming increasingly useful.
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