Bing Integrates Facebook Popular Content, Fan Pages

Microsoft Bing added a social search feature for Facebook Wednesday, making good on last year's promise to integrate status updates and Fan pages in search engine results. The deal brings the power of social conversations to search, which has traditionally been a bunch of blue links and static Web pages.

The move comes a couple of days after its search partner, Yahoo, announced that it would start pulling in Facebook status updates and build tools that would allow people to easily share pieces of ads with others connected within their social graph.

Similar to Google, which integrates real-time Twitter and Facebook feeds in search engine query results, the public updates from Facebook Fan pages and publicly shared status update links will index in search query results starting today. For public status updates, Bing will not share the text or the names of people who post, but rather the links to help others gain access to the conversation in specific communities. Member pages will serve up in aggregate, but Fan pages will provide the text.

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"When you search for a movie in the main search results, you might see that five people shared a link on a movie opening this weekend," says Adam Sohn, senior director in the online services division at Microsoft Bing. "We're still experimenting on how the results will show up in the SERPs."

Sohn says this is the first release. Bing needs to determine the usefulness of the data -- and how it's integrated into the search engine results will determine how people will see the information in the future. He wants to make one thing clear, however. When it comes to privacy, Bing will not share text or names of people in search queries. Only public links are shared. "If you mark your status updates as 'public,' and then write in the status update a message, we won't take the text or your picture -- we will only take the link," he says.

Bing will continue to monitor search engine results pages that appear in queries. Feedback from people searching on Bing through blogs and forums will determine how much information the search engine will index from Facebook. Sohn says monitoring what people click on or don't click on will also give the team insight into the content to pull in.

For advertisers, the benefit to pulling in search queries from Facebook Fan pages gives brands another way to communicate with existing and prospective customers. Serving a brand's page in search queries gives them wider distribution for their message because consumers not only get the Coca-Cola Web site on searches, but updates from the Facebook Fan page, too.

Brands like Ford and Mountain Dew have opted out of trade shows and major sporting events to reach consumers through Facebook campaigns and Fan pages. Ford, for example, decided to unveil the latest Explorer on Facebook rather than an auto show. Ford execs believe their Facebook social-networking Fan page with nearly 500 million members provides a better platform.

 

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