• Venture Beat, Friday, May 7, 2010 3:44 PM

Microsoft's Bing just debuted social network integration in its Shopping section, which lets shoppers "announce" their purchase plans to friends on Facebook, Twitter and email, Venture Beat reports. It's all "in hopes of getting feedback from friends on whether to buy or not," it writes. Furthermore, "the implementation is simple, which means it works and isn't confusing." Additionally, for some items in Bing Shopping, users now have access to additional buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and email.

The financial agreement between Microsoft, Facebook and participating advertisers is not clear at the moment. In a blog post, Bing managers Lawrence Lam and Sonam Saxena would only say: "We see our users using it not only to get feedback on price but on whether a particular product would look good on them, has a better model, etc." Added Venture Beat: "The Internet will probably concoct an entirely different use for Bing's tie-in, but that's the fun of it."

Read the whole story at Venture Beat »