Microsoft has publicly disclosed plans to release a new music and entertainment player and accompanying software under the “Zune” brand this year, in an effort to compete with Apple’s iPod, Reuters reports. Zune is expected to be on store shelves in time for Christmas as previously expected, the Reuters story confirms. Microsoft will also “try [...]
Microsoft is set to form an assault on video-sharing websites, including the hugely successful YouTube.com by launching a new service that will allow users to post their own web content. The new service will target users ranging from amateur documentary makers to aspiring pop stars and will earn revenues through advertising. Microsoft, which recently offered [...]
“We make games for the rest of us,” proclaimed Rob Glaser, founder/CEO of RealNetworks during his Casuality Seattle keynote June 27 in Seattle, Washington. Before the Internet, Glaser pointed out, there was no easy way to try casual games. There was no dedicated place to learn about and buy them, which resulted in what he [...]
Starbucks will relocate its Entertainment unit to Santa Monica from its current Seattle base and has hired music industry whiz Alan Mintz to head the operation. [24x7] Cheryl Scott named Gates Foundation COO Cheryl Scott, the former chief executive of Group Health Cooperative, has been named chief operating officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates [...]
Gnomedex Gnotes — Presidential hopeful and former North Carolina U.S. senator John Edwards took the stage last week at the sixth annual Gnomedex proceedings to get into the Blogger’s state of mind. “The next president of United State will be a single candidate who doesn’t sound like a politican,” he confessed. Top down kills engagement, [...]
Seattle-based start-up Pluggd.com has opened their podcast directory for public use. The service aims to make podcast listening easier for non-technical users. Pluggd crawls the Web for Podcast content instead of relying solely on user submissions. [24x7] Microsoft Matchmaking Microsoft should buy Yahoo! to catch up with Google in the $26 billion global Internet advertising [...]
Microsoft’s leading evangelist in the blogosphere and a founder of the video blogging movement, Robert Sdcoble, aka The Scoblelizer, has decided to leave the mighty M-team for a Silicon Valley start-up known as PofTech.net. Scoble says he leaves Microsoft because his work there was done and he moves to PodTech to participate in a nascent [...]
As of June 7, it is now a felony in the state of Washington to play poker on the Internet. The bill, S.S.B. No. 6613, has stirred up great anxiety in poker forums. Players are worried that they might get arrested. Some are trying to organize political committees to get the new law changed. The [...]
Search marketing’s gone social. I’m not just talking about the consumer-driven, new layer of social engineering. Like the you-rate-it brand of Yahoo! Local or Judy’s Book that translates user reviews and up to 5 stars of love into higher local rankings. Nor do I mean Google’s new Co-Op that invites searchers to contribute or follow [...]
May 25th marks the opening of the 32nd Annual Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). Running a full 25 days, with 418 feature length and short films from more than 60 different countries, including 19 World Premieres (5 features, 14 shorts), 40 North American Premieres (31 features, 9 shorts), and 22 US Premieres (17 Features, 5 [...]
Enter your email address below to receive updates each time we publish new content.
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]