Bing on Social Search Controversy between GOOG and Facebook
February 9, 2012
Bing finally speaks up about its social search advantage; surprising, since the company has somehow been flying under the radar recently with the controversy surrounding Google privacy and social networking.
Liz Gannes from AllThingsD.com interviewed Bing Search director Stefan Weitz regarding social data and search results in the article, “Bing–Which Has Deals With Facebook and Twitter–Finally Speaks on Social Search Controversy.” In the interview, Weitz states that social search has positively impacted the Bing experience and attributes that impact to the company’s attention to people. Weitz also comments on capitalizing on the debate around Google’s privacy and social settings. The article states:
“They [Google] are doing a nice job on their own of handling this problem. But they are learning just like we are. They did what we didn’t want to do, which was make the user experience peppered with this stuff, with +1s everywhere, the Google+ content in the top corner. I think [Google] realized we were ahead and they overextended. But I know a ton of guys there and they’re smart and they’re reacting to what has been said.”
I struggle to see exactly how Microsoft is different than Google on this issue. Instead of pressing the company’s own network (like Google using Google+,) Microsoft is using Facebook and Twitter in the same regard. Bing has just been a little slower about incorporating social data into its search results—according to Weitz, this is because making sense of social signals is complex.
I think making sense of this social search contention is possibly even more complex. Is there too much ego and testosterone in the social locker room?
Andrea Hayden, February 8, 2012
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