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Microsoft ties up with Facebook to provide social search |
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 Microsoft has once again partnered Facebook, this time around to provide search features that include information from people within their social network. While it may not do much to boost Microsoft or Bing, reports suggested analysts like the tie-up, which can potentially provide some competition to Google's dominance of search advertising.Bing says it looks at over a thousand 'signals' or clues to determine what a user is searching for, including meta tags, reverse IP for locaised results, even geo-location data. Now, it plans to incorporate friends and their opinions into that list, adding what it calls a “social layer” to search in an attempt to make the search and decision making process more social, personal and useful. The move does have its merits, with “asking friends” being the most logical or favored option for most personalized searches. “Customer data really support these conclusions. Indeed we see it all the time: 50% of people say that when making a decision, they take into consideration thoughts shared by others in their circle of friends,” wrote Satya Nadella - Senior Vice President, Online Services Division on the blog. However, reactions to the launch were mixed, with some reports about analyst cheering the alliance's potential to compete with Google's dominance of search advertising even though benefits to Microsoft's own business would be relatively minuscule. Other reports touted privacy issues with the entire concept of social search, while still others said that over time Google would update its own search with social and personalized offerings, maybe to a point where it would negate the overall effect of this partnership. |
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