Bing ‘Likes’ Facebook in Delivering Social Search Results

Microsoft’s Bing search engine has deepened its relationship with social network Facebook to deliver search results that are more personalized by integrating with the network’s Like feature. According to Microsoft, people turn to their networks of friends and family for advice, and the integration is a natural evolution of advice giving and sharing. The features have begun to roll out today to users, and full availability will take a few months. Social search features will be available when users are logged into Facebook while searching Bing. Here are some of the features that are integrated and offered.

• Like: Users will find links that are Liked by their Facebook friends when they search, and this will provide a more customized and unique search result for each user. According tio the company, “these results appear in a box on the search results page and differ for each user depending on what their friends liked.”
• Profile search: When you search for a name, relevant results will be based on friends and family on the Facebook network. “When searching for an individual, Bing looks at a person’s Facebook network and surfaces results that make the most sense based on the relationships the searcher has with people on Facebook. For example, results for common names such as “Bob Smith” will be ranked higher if a person shares mutual friends or networks. This “social distance” is used to provide people with the most personally relevant answers for people searches.”

Casey Pham
Categories: Announcements
Tags: Bing (Microsoft), Facebook