Bing Adds 'Like' Button

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."

Comments

I wonder..

[beowulfcluster]

..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.

Re:I wonder..

[Sonny Yatsen]

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.

Re:I wonder..

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Bing Adds 'Like' Button

[David Gerard]

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."

I don't 'like' it at all

[digitaldc]

So where's my 'dislike' icon?

Re:I don't 'like' it at all

[ozmanjusri]

Google it.

Re:I don't 'like' it at all

[muffen]

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"

I am a curmudgeon

[bradley13]

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?

It won't matter, especially with scams

[Penguinisto]

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...

Re:The Borg have won

[torgis]

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

Huh?

[mcgrew]

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

Re:Uninformative!

[gstoddart]

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.

people use bing

[xyourfacekillerx]

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.

The other shoe falls

[Dagmar d'Surreal]

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.

Microsoft owns at least 20% of Facebook...

[johnthorensen]

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.