Microsoft introduced a new version of Bing Thursday representing the biggest overhaul to the search engine since its launch. The changes emphasize closer ties with Facebook by integrating the expertise of friends from the social site, as well as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Quora. The company will mine online social connections to provide more personal search results for everything from movie recommendations to restaurants. The engine will support a three-column design combining traditional Web search and social. Advertisers can expect to see new ad models emerge from this design.

In yet another way of building TV program marketing for a cable network from a broadcast network, TBS has taken over “Cougar Town” from ABC. The show has run on three seasons on ABC; TBS is commissioning a fourth season to begin airing in early 2013. TBS also gets the repeat rights to 61 episodes. “Cougar” has lost almost half its key 18-49 viewers versus a year ago, sinking this season to a Nielsen live plus same day 1.5 rating among 18-49ers, 1.958 million 18-49 viewers. This compares to a 2.7 rating and 3.513 million 18-49 viewers a year ago. …

Online content partners Yahoo and ABC are teaming up with Lexus on a new promotion giving viewers of ABC’s “Revenge” a chance to win a week-long trip to the Hamptons through the Web portal’s IntoNow social TV app. The sweepstakes prize ties into the drama series setting in the wealthy Long Island enclave. Besides the contest, viewers who tag the final two episodes of  “Revenge “ airing May 16 and May 23 with IntoNow app on their mobile phone or tablet device, will be able to take part in a variety of social media activities. These include connecting with …

Shazam-enabled TV ads will make their U.K. debut May 12 in spots for Pepsi and Cadbury during the finale of “Britain’s Got Talent” on ITV1. When fans of the show use Shazam to tag the ads for Pepsi Max and the Cadbury Unwrap Gold promotion, they’ll be able to enter sweepstakes to win tickets to summer festivals and other merchandise from Pepsi MAX or London Olympics opening ceremony tickets from Cadbury. Pepsi MAX is also adding Shazam to its 'Crowd Surfing’ football ad will to give away tickets to popular festivals this summer and other prizes, free screen savers …

The Washington Post Co. Thursday confirmed the hiring of Digg’s engineering team for its social media advertising and analytics subsidiary SocialCode. The company is bringing on a total of 15 Digg engineers including Alan Lippman, who will join SocialCode as chief scientist, and Will Larson, as director of engineering. At the same time, WaPo emphasized it was not acquiring Digg.com domain, service or technology, despite acquisition rumors that arose last week when the defection of the Digg engineering group was first reported. In a blog post Thursday morning, Digg CEO Matt Williams acknowledged the loss of technical staffers but …

Exponential Interactive--parent company of online ad network and rep firm Tribal Fusion—has launched a new mobile advertising arm dubbed Appsnack focused on in-app, rich media campaigns. Leading the new unit is Sandy Shanman, most recently head of mobile sales, strategy and business development for cloud-based applications provider Limelight Networks. She has also held VP sales posts at Quattro Wireless, acquired by Apple in 2010 and AOL’s Advertising.com. Appsnack will develop HTML5-powered ads on iOS and Android devices that leverage Exponential’s e-X Advertising Intelligence audience-targeting platform for in-app campaigns. It will also release an SDK (software development kit) for developers …

Daniel Loeb Wednesday renewed his demand for Yahoo to replace CEO Scott Thompson, dismissing his apology for a fudged resume as insufficient and calling the company’s response to the matter “farcical.” Yahoo announced Tuesday it was creating a special board committee to investigate Thompson’s hiring and his academic credentials, which he was found to have padded in his bio. Yahoo also said Patti Hart, the independent director leading the search that led to Thompson’s hiring would not seek reelection to the board. Loeb, who owns a 5.8% stake in Yahoo through is Third Point hedge fund, recommended Yahoo install …

Yahoo today formally announced forming a special committee to conduct a review of CEO Scott Thompson’s academic credentials along with the facts and circumstances related to his hiring. Last Thursday Yahoo confirmed Thompson’s official bio and company regulatory filings misrepresented his educational background to include a computer science degree. The inaccuracy was exposed by major Yahoo shareholder and activist investor Daniel Loeb of hedge fund Third Point LLC. Loeb has called for Thompson’s firing over the matter and yesterday demanded Yahoo open up its records tied to his hiring. Thompson himself apologized to Yahoo employees in a memo over …

The Council for Research Excellence (CRE) this morning unveiled plans to study various TV audience measurement methods in order to better understand so-called "response bias" in Nielsen's address-based audience samples. The CRE said it would test these methods in three-markets with the objective of coming up with methods to improve Nielsen's paper diary-based TV audience measurement service.

In a keynote talk Tuesday at the Jumptap-hosted Mobile Media Upfront in New York, B. Bonin Bough, VP, Global Media and Consumer Engagement at Kraft, signaled a commitment to shifting budgets at the CPG giant more to digital and mobile platforms. In part, that's because of the continuing growth of e-commerce. "At the end of the day, shopping is going mobile, shopping is going digital," he said. Bough cited Kraft’s partnership with Nokia earlier this year to create a mobile innovation lab as a sign of the increased focus on emerging media channels he’s bringing to Kraft. “You’re going to …