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Bing Adds 'Like' Button

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the still-waiting-for-hate-button dept.

Tiek00n wrote in with something that might sound familiar, saying, "Microsoft on Monday expanded its use of Facebook within its Bing search engine, adding 'likes' and recommendations from friends and strangers into search results. Going forward, if you search for something one of your Facebook friends has 'liked,' Bing will note that in its search results. Did your sister and roommate 'like' a nearby Italian restaurant? A small photo, the Facebook 'thumbs up' icon, and a note that said they approve will show up in search results, Microsoft said."

25 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder.. by beowulfcluster · · Score: 3, Funny

    ..if my sister and roommate have agreed to let their like thingies be used like this. Unknowingly, obviously, since they'll never know about it.

    1. Re:I wonder.. by Sonny+Yatsen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, of course, that to Microsoft and Facebook (and pretty much every other major company on the internet that dabbles in social networking), agreeing and knowing are mutually exclusive concepts.

      --
      My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
    2. Re:I wonder.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The vast majority of people on Facebook aren't going to have a clue how this works. They are going to just use Bing and "like" everything they see that looks shiny to them. Unbeknownst to them, their relatives, friends, employers, etc. are going to be privy to all manner of interests that they may prefer to be private yet are too naive to see the connection. Somebody else uses your computer, suddenly you "like" gay midget hamster porn for all your "friends" to see. The potential for abuse and violation is much too high to be any part of this. I for one will recommend to everyone to not use Bing until this is mothballed.

  2. Re: Bing Adds 'Like' Button by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Funny

    As Microsoft's search engine share sunk to its lowest level yet in February, with approximately 8 to 9 queries total worldwide, Steve Ballmer has reiterated his willingness to hook up with Yahoo! and its 21 queries worldwide to take on Google.

    The press conference was held on a street corner in San Francisco as Mr Ballmer and Jerry Yang sat with their hats on the sidewalk and playing harmonicas with a "WILL WEBSEARCH FOR FOOD" sign behind them.

    "Understandably, we expect less activity in the Great Recession," said Mr Ballmer. "Nobody knows what value assets should be ... say, you aren't finished with that cigarette, are you?"

    Press attendees included a schizophrenic local resident in a tinfoil hat (“to keep Google out"), two teenagers drunk on malt liquor and a policeman keeping an eye on things from a distance. The teenagers taunted, confused and upset Mr Ballmer by suggesting he attempt to locate his own posterior.

    "My new search technology is unstoppable! Just look at this netbook!" shouted Mr Ballmer, waving an Etch-a-Sketch in a threatening manner. "IT'S MAUVE! IT RUNS WINDOWS SEVEN! LINUX PUT A RADIO IN MY HEAD! I'LL SHOW ’EM ALL! BASTARDS! LIKE! LIKE! "

    "Some love stories are eternal," said Mr Yang. "Romeo and Juliet. Heloise and Abelard. Leopold and Loeb. Microsoft and Yahoo."

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  3. I don't 'like' it at all by digitaldc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So where's my 'dislike' icon?

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    1. Re:I don't 'like' it at all by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Funny

      Google it.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    2. Re:I don't 'like' it at all by muffen · · Score: 5, Funny

      Make a new facebook profile and call it "nobody", then when you dislike something you can click the "Like" button with the "nobody" profile, and it will say "Nobody Likes This"

    3. Re:I don't 'like' it at all by tgd · · Score: 2

      Its the logout link under the Facebook icon.

      If you don't log into FB and grant Bing permissions to your social feed, you won't get any of it.

      But for a lot of people, its pretty damn handy.

  4. I am a curmudgeon by bradley13 · · Score: 3

    Ok, I am being an old curmudgeon here, but...can we just take all of these social icons littering the web and sweep them into the trashcan?

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
    1. Re:I am a curmudgeon by andrea.sartori · · Score: 2

      NoScript should do.

      --
      Mostly harmless.
    2. Re:I am a curmudgeon by andrea.sartori · · Score: 2

      Oh noes you mentioned the hosts file... countdown running...

      --
      Mostly harmless.
  5. It won't matter, especially with scams by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't wait to see what happens come the next FB scam/spam blitz, now that SEO's have a huge incentive to push a few in their favor.

    Also, for some odd reason I foresee Farmville and other Zynga games at the top of damned near every Bing results page...

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  6. The Borg have won by Posting=!Working · · Score: 2

    FTFA:
    "Input from the collective IQ can enable search to become a discovery tool"

    Damn, they're not even trying to hide it anymore.

    --
    This sentence no verb.
    1. Re:The Borg have won by torgis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Because none of us is as dumb as all of us."

  7. Re: Bing Adds 'Like' Button by cpu6502 · · Score: 2

    On Tuesday May 17, @01:17AM, David Gerard opined:
    > Steve Ballmer has reiterated his willingness to hook up with Yahoo!

    Yahoo already hooked-up with Microsoft's Bing 2 years ago. When you look at Yahoo search results, you're really looking at Bing results.

    --
    My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
  8. Re:Going forward by gr8_phk · · Score: 2

    While totally off topic. "Going forward" implicitly means "excluding the past" and therefore this is a new thing. This doesn't add much to the conversation going forward, but will easily prevent people from saying "but I didn't see that" because obviously it wasn't there before. And yeah, I did that again for you.

  9. Uninformative! by augi01 · · Score: 2

    Alright, so I can know if my sister (or whoever) "likes" a particular restaurant (or whatever) through Bing. But what about the why? Was the service good? How was the food? Are the drinks reasonably priced? And so forth. Absent any of that information, this "addition" is rather useless.

    --
    No yesterday, no tomorrow, and no today.
    1. Re:Uninformative! by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Alright, so I can know if my sister (or whoever) "likes" a particular restaurant (or whatever) through Bing. But what about the why? Was the service good? How was the food? Are the drinks reasonably priced? And so forth. Absent any of that information, this "addition" is rather useless.

      Well, that pretty much sums up the entire fscking "like" button idea.

      I often find myself in Subway seeing the "Like us on Facebook" or whatever the heck the sign says -- near as I can figure, the "Like" button is really only useful for marketing purposes to be able to say "see, we have eleventy million people on Facebook who like us". Who gives a crap?

      It's complete drivel, which is more or less how I feel about Facebook. Seems like half the web pages I go to now have the embedded "friend us on facebook" or "like us facebook" -- there is nothing meaningful, or useful in there, it's just casting your lot in with everyone else to say you like McDonald's or whatever. In fact, I'm sure from a marketing perspective, it's the best thing evar.

      The fact that it's integrated now with Bing ... well, once again, I find myself yawning at the prospect of Bing. Oooh, they've added a Facebook 'Like' button -- that's gonna make me switch search engines.

      Maybe I just got bored with IRC, usenet, and ICQ back in the 90s ... but I gotta say, I just don't 'get' this stuff.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  10. Huh? by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Funny

    Somebody actually uses Bing? Now THAT would be front page news!

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
    1. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Somebody actually uses Bing? Now THAT would be front page news!

      In US, about 30% and growing. http://www.stateofsearch.com/bing-keeps-growing-in-the-us-now-30-marketshare/

  11. people use bing by xyourfacekillerx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I use bing, I get better results than google, which the first 10 pages for essentially ANY search these days are links to just computer-generated content, my keyword match being the caption text of some advertisement or worse, not anywhere on the page. Bing filters through all that and gives me the legitimate pages I'm after. Another problem with google, is it won't bother to return results for "old" web pages - even if the site has been indexed, and you can run a query with an EXACT match from within the site's text. There are sites from 2002-2004 I reference all the time in my academic work, they don't need to be updated, so why should the value of their informative content ever expire like Google thinks it should? so when I am using a computer without my bookmarks, I'll never find those sites on google.

    However upon this news, I will no longer be using bing. I want facebook and facebook alone to know that I'm using facebook, if I'm logged into facebook, I don't want bing or any other site to be aware of that.

  12. Prediction for the future: by QilessQi · · Score: 2

    When Facebook goes the way of MySpace and Friendster, the Bing results will look incredibly dated and dumb.

    Oh, but don't let me stop you, Microsoft. Please go right ahead. :-)

    --
    Koans and fables for the software engineer
  13. The other shoe falls by Dagmar+d'Surreal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well... I guess this explains why it was that Facebook was trying to chum the waters about Google's social search features--because they were planning on partnering with Bing to do the exact same thing with social searches.

  14. Microsoft owns at least 20% of Facebook... by johnthorensen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Citation

    I've never understood why this situation doesn't garner more attention in all the debates about either Microsoft or Facebook. I'm not saying that MS owning part of FB is a bad thing or a good thing, it just amazes me that it's not brought up in conspiracy theories about FB privacy, or in stories about Microsoft's 'decline', or whatever...

    Even TFA doesn't mention this *in a story about MS integrating FB features into Bing*. Instead, it just says something about Google not going there because they're slinging mud back and forth with FB.

  15. Re:Spammers and scammers by delinear · · Score: 2

    So what's new? Search engines have been abused since day 1 (in fact since day zero - even before dearch engines existed, when you basically got a list of links, people paid to rank higher). Google managed to bring some common sense back to proceedings for a while, but it seems like it gets gamed as much as anyone else today. I'm not sure how spammers could abuse this, though, other than asking a bunch of users to like their pages (which companies already do, and if it's so overt they should be easily filtered out).