Since the dawn of the digital age, the most potent ideas have been described as being the most “disruptive” for their transformative power to realign the status quo. By the sheer size of its revenues and its user base, the media properties it dominates, and the industries it has displaced or recast, the Google AdWords [...]
The world of search marketing, and its most elite software developers, tool makers, pundits and practitioners, descend on the Bell Harbor International Conference Center this week for the fifth annual edition of the Search Marketing Expo Advanced symposium, a sold-out, standing room only event with an expo hall of exhibitors and special workshop sessions that [...]
Microsoft Windows president Steven Sinofsky took the bright red hot seat at the All Things D conference this week and like the technical architect of an economic recovery in post-recession America, presented his rationale of where Microsoft has missed certain “windows of opportunity” and how the next generation of Windows seeks to reimagine the future. [...]
As every climber knows, it is an inner fire which must be stoked in order to defy gravity and ascend the vertical path that leads to a summit. And like every climber who is also a software developer knows, each summit represents only one milestone. The skyward journey is the real reward. The path that [...]
If you like your Net news like you like your espresso – – in small, yet savory, doses, with a smooth, dense froth and a flavorful bean, ground fresh and compacted with just the right amount of tamping, well, we’ve got the following shots lined up to whet your whistle. While the global news cycle [...]
The “authorizing” signature is as ingrained in our culture as the handshake. We sign on the dotted line. We sign here. We sign there. We sign our life away. Seattle’s DocuSign made its name porting that oldest of identity verification methods over to the digital world. But last weekend, the software-as a-service provider did something it had [...]
When Jelena Krzeszowski, (pronounced “Kra-ZOW-ski”), a rising young star on the Seattle wedding scene with a world-class portfolio, sought to update her Seattle wedding website for this summer’s prime-time Wedding season, she noticed that the landscape had changed since she and Google first got engaged. Like a wedding procession itself, all the elements still needed to work [...]
It’s been a breathless 9 years since U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered that Microsoft be divided into two distinct companies, ending its hegemony on the PC desktop. That saga came to an end last week with the expiration of the consent decree the software giant signed with the U.S. Justice Department in 2002. But [...]
The biggest single acquisition in Microsoft history is now, (wait for it), Internet history as Microsoft announced it has acquired the Internet telephone service that has become a noun and a verb— and is pronounced “Skype”— for the purchase price of a mere $8.5 billon dollars! The local reaction, as gauged in an online Twitter [...]
Seattle Economic Monthly, incubated each month inside the city’s Office of Economic Development, has placed a few choice metrics from our fair city into digital perspective (numbers-wise that is), in part by contrasting our local stats with the national peg points. National Numbers Unemployment rate falls to 8.8% Consumer spending rises 0.7% in February Real [...]
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May 14 2012
Google Blinks! Bing Sings, and Slings the Arrows of Social Interface Discontent! Amazon’s Social “Denny Triangle!”
At last week’s Bing Search Summit in San Francisco, Microsoft took the wraps off a brand new Bing featuring a new, right-hand social column (“The Sidebar”) that will eventually include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Quora and LinkedIn integration, as well as people who may know something about your most recent Bing query. The new Bing search even offers a way to ask questions on your favorite social network, directly through Bing. “The search engine has been reinvented!” wrote Mashable’s Lance Ulanoff.
In total, there are three new Bing columns in all:
* Core Search: minus many of the social annotations that Bing has added over the years (that have been relocated).
* Snapshot: providing additional information about a particular search listing, without having to leave Bing
* Sidebar: serving as the new home for social integration with search
“With this update, the competing search philosophies are clearer than ever,” opined Mashable. “Google sees the world as a deep blend of data, people and activities, all of which can be mined simultaneously for a rich and useful experience. Bing sees a more structured world, where social interactions, while extremely helpful, are kept a safe distance from the core results you desire.”
How does Bing build these “Friends Who Might Know” lists? Microsoft execs explained they’re leveraging as much publicly available data as possible from Facebook (for now) and soon Twitter and other networks. Inclusion in the list is not necessarily based on something you posted about the topic.
The sidebar includes people you know through your social networks that have, say, posted a photo about the topic, liked a certain relevant topic or searched for a similar topic in Bing, and people you don’t know, who are, for example, known Topic Experts and Enthusiasts (identified by Bing). All of them could be considered helpful in your quest for knowledge. Conversations revolving around a query topic are viewable through the social pane — you just hover over the activity and a small box will slide out to the left with the original post. You can add comments in any conversation in the activity pane or see the conversation in the slideout.
For example, a search for “Seattle restaurants” might pull up Facebook friends who have “liked” dining establishments in the metro area under a header that reads “Friends Who Might Know.” Bing users can also post comments or queries in the sidebar interface that will automatically be published to their Facebook page (provided they’re signed into Facebook) and could hypothetically flag their Seattle-based friends in posts seeking advice on where to go for dinner.
To see the new pane at work, you have to sign into Facebook and install the Bing App in Facebook. With that done, your social pane will be filled with recent Bing activity that’s also been shared on Facebook. When you enter a search query in the Bing interface on the left, the pane will also display a list of Facebook friends, and topic experts who might be able to assist with your query. Note: The Bing App defaults to sharing your posts with Everyone. If you do a lot of searching, you may want to dial that down a bit.
This deep integration with Facebook isn’t the first time the two have collaborated, and Bing has been adding social recommendations powered by Facebook to its search results for the past year. But it’s a sure sign that Microsoft — which bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million in 2007 — will lean on a company it’s heavily invested in to improve on the social-search product Google introduced in January. “Search Plus Your World” pulls up Google+ content deemed relevant to signed-in Google users and has gotten a tepid reception, said Adage. [24x7]
Amazon Advances Its Vision for a Social Campus Compass, Not an “Apple Circle,” but a “Denny Triangle.”
The City of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development has posted the latest renderings of Amazon’s proposed Denny Triangle campus.
At a public design review board meeting, attendees liked proposed amenities that include outdoor artwork, a playing field, a dog park and space for food trucks.
The venue also incorporates a healthy measure of social engineering into the design. To ensure public open spaces between buildings are both lively and safe, buildings are designed so that people who park their cars in the underground garages will have to walk outside to get from the garage elevators to the elevators in the building lobbies. “That will help ensure a steady flow of people moving through the plazas.”
The project will also be a haven for bicyclists. Each of the three blocks will have a dedicated bike entrance and storage for as many as 400 bikes. That could allow as many as 1,200 Amazon employees to bike to work. [24x7]