The article examined the collaboration of Facebook and Bing to create a social aspect to the search engine. They want their users to be more socially connected when they use their site. Microsoft, who is already a share holder of Facebook, has worked on many occasions with the social networking site. Bing is already embedded into Facebook’s search box and now they’re looking to integrate the social aspect of Facebook into their own search results. In the article they gave an example. If you search Motorolla Droid on Bing you will see related links that your friends have shared of Facebook or if you search a movie it will show which of your friends liked that movie. Also if you are searching for people, Microsoft will scan through your profile and friends to narrow down which person you might be searching for. In regards to the privacy issue, they stated that this search will only work with information that is listed as public on your page and you can opt out of it if you want. Also, Bing and Facebook have always been rivals of Google and in response to their announcement on Wednesday, Google has also reported their own efforts of becoming more socially connected with a feature they are calling Google Me. Microsoft’s president of online services stated, “We see the web going far beyond a web of documents to a web of the world. The social graph enables our users to access and discover information and complete tasks more efficiently. We will be able to harness and unlock the power of Facebook’s platform and take search to the next level.”
In class I posed the questions, "Do you think this will be a useful tool and how much do you value the opinions of your friends when it comes to your own decision-making?" and "Do you think this new feature will take away some of the users from other search engines such as Google?" Responses to the first question proved that this new technology will not be a useful tool. People want the facts rather then their friends opinions when searching the internet. Also how could the likes of your friends possible spread across the vast knowledge of the internet, making it an inadequate technology in most cases. In regards to Google, most people felt that their search results far surpass that of Bing and they would not be swayed by Facebook's involvement with Bing. On the other hand though, if Google was to make a social networking site it would not be very successful because Facebook is already too entrenched in our culture. Overall, I believe that Google and Bing should stick to what they do best and just offer the best possible search results system that they can and leave the social aspect to Facebook.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/bing-friends-facebook/
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