Craig Swanson discovered the first rule of marketing a small business over two decades ago when he combined his technical talents with his passion for the creative arts. As one of Seattle’s top technology consultants to the design and pre-press community at that time, Swanson began to appreciate a simple rule: The key to business success [...]
“Avvocating Social Media” 2012 Conference Brings Together Lawdom’s Best and Brightest Social Media and Legal Minds at the Crossroads of Online Social Interaction For centuries, the venerable “black robed” legal profession has been unfashionably late to most forms of social engagement. Imagine: Lawyers were banned from advertising in 1908, until the gag order was removed as late as [...]
What’s the difference between a Seattle Geek, a Seattle Nerd, and their real-world counterparts in Silicon Valley? It didn’t take last week’s Emerald City Comicon to put the answer into sharper focus — but it probably helped! According to an infographic produced by our friends at Killer Infographics (no, they are not “Gangsta”), based on data [...]
Digital Burndown, a new catalyst for community, invites you to experience social gaming and meet other talented E-City game developers in live “meat space.” That’s the space where you will “meet” with other “live minds and bodies” in the non-virtual world. The “meating place” is reserved for game industry folks to get social-aka-”network” with colleagues. [...]
Feeling under the weather is not unusual in Seattle. But area residents can wait, on average, for up to two weeks or more to arrange a medical appointment with a specialist.* Where do you turn when you need to see a doctor…right away? Try the Internet. ZocDoc has launched in the Greater Seattle region to [...]
SEOmoz, one of the search marketing industry’s most popular providers of search engine and social optimization software, proudly announced that its SEO analytics software suite, beter known as SEOmoz PRO, has been named the 2012 Commercial Product of the Year, by the Washington Technology Industry Association in its 17thannual Industry Achievement Awards (IAA). The awards honor [...]
Visible Technologies®, a leading provider of social media monitoring, analytics and engagement software and services, has attracted Web-wide attention with the launch of their March Madness social performance dashboard designed to capture the scores, break down the stats and follow the thrilling upsets of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The real-time social media data display [...]
Symform, a rapidly emerging cloud storage and free cloud backup service in Seattle, has announced two additions to its executive team, rounding out a talented leadership group. Chris Boscolo joins Symform as vice president of engineering, and Candace Grisdale is the company’s new vice president of worldwide sales. Over the past few months, Symform has aggressively recruited top talent [...]
Heard the one about the two orange robots who roll into a Belltown bar? “Rough day at work?” says the first bot, named Kiva II, after his parent, to his stock-picking colleague. “I’ve transported more Amazon Prime product off of warehouse shelves today than a Foxconn iPad assembler working overtime!” “Easy for you to say” remotes [...]
The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) has announced the winners of its 17th Annual Industry Achievement Awards. “The selection process was incredibly difficult, as the finalists represented a deep field of talented technologists, entrepreneurs and great companies. We congratulate them all,” said Susan Sigl, CEO of the WTIA. “Our great state continues to be a hotbed of [...]
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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]