Looking Ahead for Bing Entity Engine
April 28, 2014
We know the Web search engines have been working to reduce the number of clicks between us and our desired information and/or action points. For Google, the mechanism behind this is called Knowledge Graph. For Bing, it’s the Entity Engine. Now, TechCrunch reports that “Microsoft Has Big Plans for Bing’s Entity Engine.”
Bing has always emphasized hooking users up with results that let them take action, like reserving a table or booking a flight. This increasingly means working with third-party sites. Reporter Frederic Lardinois interviewed Derrick Connell, head of the Bing Experience group. Lardinois writes:
“Connell argues that the only way to do this efficiently is to create an open ecosystem that powers these actions. ‘We think a lot about how we can create value for everybody who is participating in this new emerging space,” he said. “And how can we bring the best set of players to the table for our users?’
“Today, this means having partnerships with Yelp, OpenTable, TripAdvisor and others, and Microsoft then highlights the actions they make possible on its search engine. In the long run, though, Connell envisions an open ecosystem where any site can make actions available using a standard markup language (he mentioned schema.org as an option in our conversation). Then, when a user looks for an entity, Bing could map this to an entity provider and shorten the path users take between searching for something and putting this knowledge into action. Ideally, this could even mean taking the action right on Bing (maybe even with a single click), but Connell acknowledged that issues around identity and login management will probably mean users will have to take most actions on a third-party site.”
Unsurprisingly, Connell argues that Microsoft may be one of the only companies capable of building such a project. For now, as more third-party sites become involved, the problem is how to decide which gets the traffic from any particular search. Lardinois makes an interesting observation: the prevalence of the Microsoft Office suite means we could see the day when Bing lets us search the Web from within Word or Excel. Near-monopoly does have its advantages.
Cynthia Murrell, April 28, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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