Bing Gets a Bunch of New Search Features

Update: According to Bing, all of the features that were announced are now live. However, they do not appear to be live yet for me. I am guessing they will be soon at least.

Original Article: Microsoft has announced the addition of a number of new features to its Bing search engine. The company says it has been examining the trends in search and in feedback, and is working to accommodate these. Microsoft is referring to trends like the demand for faster access to knowledge, offering different user interfaces for different kinds of results, and an increased focus on "getting things done" with search.

Would you use Bing more if it added the right features? Talk to ArisYulianta and Friends... what it's missing.

Bing is rolling out a new "task-focused" version of its home page. It looks relatively the same as before, but when you mouse over different categories, you will get more search options. For example, if you mouse over "Travel," you will get links like "find flights" and "find hotels," and you can conduct your search from there.

"There is also an interactive Instant Answer that allows you to enter your origin, destination, travel dates and…click…you are in Bing travel," says Bing Product Manager Henry Hall. "Within Bing travel you have fast access to flight purchase recommendations via the price predictor that tells you the least expensive times to fly. In addition to money, you’ll save time as well with Bing travel’s comprehensive flight listing results and links to top travel sites and airlines."

Bing is also enhancing local information for hundreds of cities looking for things like local attractions, points of interest, neighborhoods and other local information sources like newspaper web sites. Bing has developed enhanced city results, which include links to key information and high-resolution slide shows.

Bing is making it easier to find the preview feature. "We're doing a better job mining things like contact phone numbers and email addresses from web pages and displaying them clearly under a Contact banner, and generally cleaning up the interface to make it easier to decide if this a site you want to visit," says Hall. "Last, we're also integrating images in some preview results. We believe that all these features will allow for a faster decision about whether a site is right for your needs, which means less clicking on your browser’s back button."

Bing has also added a new Event Search feature, which gives users a summary of events for major cities, which can be filtered by things like performances, food & dining, fairs & festivals, music, etc.

Bing has also made it easy to share results for shopping searches on Facebook, a feature Hall deems ideal for passing on holiday gift ideas. There are also better results for health-related searches, including, conditions, medications, and hospitals. Each type of query will return more info and a more organized set of results.

Perhaps the biggest addition to Bing is that of Wolfram Alpha's algorithms and "expertly curated data". Wolfram Alpha will help power Bing's results for nutritional information and math searches.

When users search Bing for specific food items, they will get a nutrition quick tab that shows more information about it and a nutrition facts label at the bottom of the results page.

"Another helpful tool is the body mass index that tracks your workout progress," the Bing Team says. "We have introduced Wolfram|Alpha’s body mass index interactive form on our results page. If you search for ‘bmi’ you’ll get the option to enter your height and weight. Click ‘Calculate’ and you’ll get a detailed Body Mass Index analysis directly on Bing."

Bing will also rely on Wolfraph Alpha's ability to solve complex math functions.

Bing says there will be more new features highlighted on the Bing Search Blog over the next few days. The features are just starting to roll out in the US, so it could be a while before you actually see them.

More on the newly announced features, read this post. For more on Bing's integration with Wolfram Alpha specifically, read here.

Will the addition of new search capabilities increase Bing's market share? Share your thoughts.

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Go to Google to Gain Weight

As you may know, Google's Matt Cutts regularly answers questions submitted by users via videos uploaded to Google's Webmaster Central YouTube Channel. Usually the questions and answers are helpful tips and explanations regarding the workings of Google and how webmasters can better accomplish some goal related to their sites' performance in the search engine.

Occasionally, however, Matt will answer different kinds of questions, and sometimes more fun ones. This one falls into that category. Recently, one user submitted the question:

What is the most common running gag over there at Google?

While one might hope to hear some wild frat-like hazing stories about Google's workforce, Matt doesn't share anything too crazy, but his responses are kind of amusing nonetheless.

Matt says that one really common running gag at Google is referred to as the "Google 15". This is in reference to the approximately 15 pounds a lot of Google employees gain within their first few months with the company.

"Whenever you join Google," he says, "you realize there's fantastic, great food, and you start to eat it, and it's free, so you don't have to stop eating it."

Eventually, he says, they realize that it's free and it will "still be there tomorrow," so they don't have to eat it all at once. He also notes that Google has gyms and other activities that employees can participate in that will help them lose some of the weight.

Another gag at Google according to Matt, is that sometimes people talk about a space elevator being built, and nobody's ever really sure if it's a joke or not, because there are a lot of "science geeks" at the company.

Have You Read This?

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Has YouTube Found the Right Ad Solution?

YouTube has begun testing a new kind of ad format on some of its videos - skippable pre-rolls. These ads let users choose whether or not they want to watch the ad as it appears at the beginning of a video.

YouTube says that when it first began testing in-stream ads a couple years ago, abandonment rates on videos were as high as 70%. They found that users were much more likely to view and engage with overlay ads.

"But over time we found that different kinds of content provide different experiences for viewers, and that in-stream ads work pretty well on certain videos, like clips from TV shows or full-length movies," says YouTube. "We first launched in-stream ads last year, and we've continued to innovate and test different in-stream formats on YouTube (like user-choice pre-rolls)."

Users may find the skippable pre-rolls slightly annoying but tolerable, since they are still in control of whether they have to watch it or not. They may come off as a bit intrusive, similar to pop-up ads, but if they are easy to skip, people will probably be willing to continue on with the video.

Chances are, they will see enough of the ad to begin with to at least gain some kind of brand awareness. That's really going to be all up to the ad though. Advertisers looking at this kind of spot may want to strongly consider getting the meat of the message in as early as possible.

"We know what you're thinking: who would choose to watch an ad when they can skip it?" says YouTube. "Well, that's what we're trying to find out. In our previous research, we've actually seen that lots of users will watch pre-rolls. Abandonment rates are affected by several factors, notably length and creative. When a pre-roll is only 15 seconds, we see completion rates as high as 85%. Also, creative matters a lot: the quality and relevance of the ad itself seems to have 3x the influence on abandonment online as it does on TV. Viewers online tend to be much more active in making choices about what they watch."

Remember that these new ads are only being tested at this point, but YouTube seems quite optimistic that it may have found its best advertising solution yet. We'll see if the tests confirm this, and if this becomes a normal ad-type for the world's most popular video site (and 2nd largest search engine).

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> Watch: Will Ferrell and Adam McKay Talk YouTube

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Google Launches New Enterprise Search Features

Today Google announced two new tools for Enterprise Search - Side-By-Side search comparison and new connectors for the Google Search Appliance. Both of these features are available in Google Enterprise Labs.

Side-By-Side Search Comparison

This feature lets employees test and rate results from two different queries on the same topic, so they can determine which one delivered the better results. Google provides the following example, where the person has set up two different Google Search Appliance configurations to search "google".

"Employees can then vote on their preferred results, by choosing the Policy A or B buttons, and the administrator can then use that information to choose and set up the right search solution for the business," explains Google's Engineering team.

The following video may give you a better idea of how to use the feature: 

Connectors for the Google Search Appliance

Connector updates are for major content management systems and for Salesforce data so the Google Search Appliance can search and provide users with access to internal Salesforce info. "Connectors integrate data from all different kinds of file and content systems (like SharePoint, FileNet, Documentum) so an employee searching their company intranet can see a single, unified search results page, even if the results are drawn from a wide variety of company data systems," the team explains.

This post has more info on the connectors, and this one has more on the side-by-side comparison feature.

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