Facebook search to be powered by Bing.

Drops Microsoft PPC, adds Bing search

[Eurydice]

Facebook announced this morning a deal with Microsoft: they're dropping the Microsoft ads; in turn, Microsoft gets to power the search box in Facebook.

What is Bing's marketshare now? They're in Yahoo (#3) and Facebook (#2).

[mack]

[bing.com...]

we are extending our cooperation outside the US, bringing the Bing-Facebook search integration to the more than 400 million people using Facebook around the world.

Thats a lot of eyeballs.

Lastly, we made the mutual decision that Facebook would take over responsibility for selling display advertisements on its own site.

I think that was to be expected. Even with the Bing/Yahoo agreement Yahoo will become the advertising force of the properties involved. It really does look as if Microsoft wants as far away as possible from the advert market.

Mack.

[Eurydice]

At first, I'd think that Bing would want to place the ads in Facebook.

But strategically, that's not Bing's goal. The ad revenue isn't important (in the similar deal with Yahoo, Yahoo gets the revenues).

Bing's strategic goal is to undermine Google's #1 position.

This is pretty clever.

[celgins]

That's a whole bunch of eyeballs; which translates into a bunch of fingers typing in the names of old classmates, lost loves, community groups, etc.

[JS_Harris]

Whats the benefit for Facebook besides cash? No more ads + 2nd best search engine (since Yahoo claims not to be one) doesn't sound like a win-win.

[Silvery]

Hopefully Bing search will function a lot better than Facebook's homegrown search! Currently, you're lucky if the Facebook search finds who you're looking for - I've been doing site: searches in Google to find people in Facebook.

[zett]

Each page view with a search "powered by Bing" will be a tiny advertisement for Bing. Google will be hit hard by this. Finally, Google gets what it deserves, after having ignored important needs (like transparency and privacy) from publishers and webusers for so long. What joy!

[walkman]

Second best is good enough for 90% of people--even if Bing is second best.

[JS_Harris]

I just don't get the Google bashing I suppose, they have hands down the worlds best search engine. Any word on how much Bing paid for this?

edit: I just performed a search here on WebmasterWorld and noticed Bing is above Google when it used to be below, Brett have you been talking to Microsoft too? :-)

[frontpage]

@JS-Harris - This issue is privacy and transparency especially when dealing with a website like Facebook where privacy is treasured. Bing has taken large steps to guard user privacy.

Google, these days, is viewed as anti-privacy as evidenced by their own CEO's public statements.

Bing has publicly stated that they will not just scrub the IP address of the search data but actually delete it after 6 months.

Microsoft will eliminate all data collected on Bing users after six months. The software giant said it sent a letter to the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, a collection of the EU's top minds on data protection and privacy issues, today notifying it that the company would reduce the amount of time it stores IP addresses from searchers from 18 months to six months before deleting them.

Even Yahoo has taken steps to protect privacy by deleting logs after 3 months.

Here’s how Yahoo plans to scrub the data, which includes not just search, but page views and ad views as well:

* Delete the final octet of the IP address
* Yahoo! ID will be one-way secret hashed and the last 50 percent of the hashed identifier is truncated
* Cookie identifiers are one-way secret hashed
* Add an additional search filter for personally identifiable info in search logs such as credit card numbers or social security numbers

Whereas, Google actually never deletes any of the data but removes the last 3 digits of the users IP address.

Question: What’s being removed from the IP addresses? The last three digits?

We are removing the last octet of the IP address. In other words, we put zeros into the last eight bits of a 32-bit IP address. Technically speaking, there can be one to three digits in the last octet, when it is written in decimal notation.

In fact, Google argues that your IP address is not even 'personal data' and not subject to privacy. See: [googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com...]

I would have serious issues with FB if I knew Google had access to the FB data coupled with their famous virtually non-expiring, unique tracking cookie.

[pdivi]

This could be huge. The switching cost on search engines use is minuscule...all it really takes is for users to get acquainted with a search engine they prefer. Facebook could very well be the way a critical mass gets introduced to Bing, and if users prefer it to Google, it could be game over. Five years from now, MBAs might be reading a case study on how hubris brought down the world's biggest Internet company. Walk around the beach kicking sand in everyone's face, and eventually, someone (or some group) will take you down.

[maximillianos]

Who is kicking sand at who? I don't get all this negativity. It confuses me.

So is the FB search a web search box? Or is it just a person/internL search box? Or is it both?

If it is just internal search, then I don't think this will give Bing the boost it needs. Folks will still go to G to search the web. In fact I predict regardless this will not take a single percentage point from G's market share.

[idolw]

wow this is going to be though for Bing, especially in non-english.
I have been trying to use bing as my default search engine for a while and for english searches it worked really really good - not digging into results relevancy, I usually found what I was looking for. But for search in polish google kicks their butt big time.

[mcneely]

Google gets what it deserves, after having ignored important needs (like transparency and privacy) from publishers and webusers for so long.

Sure .. and we'll all forget that Bing is owned by Microsoft Corp .. the ones who nearly single handedly invented *Backweb

[pdivi]

Who is kicking sand at who?

The list is long and very well documented in the mainstream press, but let's just focus on MS & Facebook to stick to the theme of this thread.
G kicks sand at MS:
- Google Docs vs. MS Office
- Chrome vs. MS Explorer
- Chrome OS (coming soon) vs. Windows
- Gmail vs. Hotmail
- Android vs. Windows Mobile

G kicks sand at Facebook:
- OpenSocial vs. Facebook

Google is picking fights all over the place, and in some cases, where it has very little to gain and where the competitor has a whole lot to lose. IMO, they are just begging the competition to join together and give them a beating.

[J_RaD]

G kicks sand at apple
G kicks sand at wireless carries
G kicks sand at aff marketers / webmasters

it seems they don't want to move their feet unless its kicking sand on somebody, and as i've said before all it will take is all of these people to team up and take on the common enemy.

[maximillianos]

G kicks sand at MS:
- Google Docs vs. MS Office
- Chrome vs. MS Explorer
- Chrome OS (coming soon) vs. Windows
- Gmail vs. Hotmail
- Android vs. Windows Mobile

I'm no expert, but I think each example above is not an attempt to kick sand at anyone, but rather expand and improve on a product line that went stagnant.

MS pretty much abandoned taking Word/Office to the next level (internet/web apps) until the competition did it first.

Internet Explorer was neglected for years (security holes, no new features), again leaving the door wide open for competition like Firefox to take some market share away.

Hotmail was/is a mess. They had so many opportunities to make that product a solid email platform. Instead they left it to remain stagnant and lost a big market share to other email platforms. I use to be a loyal Hotmail user until I got tired of how many clicks it took me to get things done, and got tired of the spam, and the fact that they wanted to charge me for the same service I could get for free else where.

Windows Mobile has struggled for years to get it right. They simply shrunk down Windows, which just doesn't work.

Microsoft has left all these doors open. Google (and Apple, Sun/Oracle, etc) would all be fools not to try and take advantage of Microsoft's lack of attention to these product lines.

This isn't sand kicking, this is progress. IE is better now because of competition. Office is getting better now due to OpenOffice and Google Docs, Hotmail is getting better now (I think) due to Gmail.

They should be thanking the competition for waking them up.

[J_RaD]

So is the FB search a web search box? Or is it just a person/internL search box? Or is it both?

it seems to be both, people 1st then below relevent results from the web with the option to expand and view more.

[J_RaD]

MS pretty much abandoned taking Word/Office to the next level (internet/web apps)

web apps are clunky and junky. I'd much rather have an install of real office or open office vs having to use it in my web browser.

If web apps are the next level then we are going down a level. I've got lots of ram and processor sitting right here on my desk, use it please.

[mcneely]

web apps are clunky and junky

Precisely the reasons why I don't use them .. or ever will use them

[walkman]

[googleblog.blogspot.com...]

Wow! What cheap propaganda and insulting to our intelligence on privacy.

'Well, it maybe your roommate's cousin using your computer, not you, so the IP is private.' (summarized)


The AOL log release made it clear that people can be identified. What are the odds that the same IP searches for his 'John Doe' name to see what pages say about him, their 'website.com' and then 'Herpes symptoms' in the same 5 minute interval?

So do what you want to do but stop with the spin, it's pathetic.

[J_RaD]

if ISP's started really changing their users IP very often all of that data would become useless to google.

I know my IP has only changed 3 times over the past 8 years.

[Seb7]

Sod. Bing & Google. Its Facebook that is the winner here. I'm not sure if they are just searching the Facebook pages, but if Facebook included a web search engine, a lot of users would never leave Facebook at all.

[mromero]

The NYT is reporting that Gmail will unveil new social networking features this week.

"MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google plans to take another stab at capturing some of the momentum surrounding social networking companies like Facebook and Twitter by leveraging Gmail, its popular e-mail service. "

[J_RaD]

^ yay just like how it tried to go into the IM market with google talk and it sucked, then they shoved it in gmail in an attempt to MAKE more people use it.

[physics]

Wow. The power of the Microsoft money machine. At least in this case it's allowing them to battle the 800-lb gorilla more effectively.

if ISP's started really changing their users IP very often all of that data would become useless to google.

I know my IP has only changed 3 times over the past 8 years.

You may want to switch to an ISP that allows your IP to change. A lot of DSL services will change IP when you disconnect/reconnect the modem using the web interface (or 'power cycle' it).

[Nobias]

Google kicks sand at us, webmasters, because they think their propaganda can play us.

If you add the fact that each day Google is working closer and closer with the US government and is more and more into politics and lobbying then there is something seriously wrong which could only turn worse.

[J_RaD]

You may want to switch to an ISP that allows your IP to change. A lot of DSL services will change IP when you disconnect/reconnect the modem using the web interface

well with 20 down / 5 up im not going to be changing to DSL, and having a somewhat static IP helps me with things like VPN, FTP, and temp HTTP. I visit google from a scraper or proxy now so they never get my IP

[CainIV]

No more ads + 2nd best search engine (since Yahoo claims not to be one) doesn't sound like a win-win.

Maybe they know something that we don't know about future search engine market share :)

[Propools]

Oops!

[edited by: Propools at 9:09 pm (utc) on Feb 12, 2010]