The New Social Bing May Give Microsoft An Edge In Search
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) launched an upgraded Bing search engine last week, with some really significant updates that could turn the tide in its favor. [1] Microsoft has been continually trying to improve Bing over the years but has failed to gain any significant edge over Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), which is why its market share remains a fraction of Google’s despite investing billions of dollars in research for Bing.
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Could gain ground on Google
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The new Bing combines core web search — the kind that Google excels at — with social search to offer a more relevant search experience to users. It will offer the usual web search as usual, and will add two other features to improve the user experience. A new snapshot feature will enable users to access relevant information instantly, right on the search results page, so that users can find what they need without clicking over to any other website. Microsoft will refine these results using user behavior over time, automatically improving the relevance and quality of the snapshot.
And finally, the most important update — the Social Sidebar.
Microsoft has added a Sidebar to the search experience, which will appear as a part of every query, and bring your friends, experts and other enthusiasts into the search experience in addition to web results, providing a much better, personalized search experience. Users can ask questions to their friends on Facebook directly from the sidebar, or follow posts by influential experts on the topic they’re searching for. It will also add an activity feed, which will help users interact with their Facebook friends to find answers for their queries and engage in discussions directly from Bing.
Facebook: Microsoft’s greatest ally in search
This is exactly what Google has been trying to do with Google “Search Plus Your World”. It has been trying to leverage social data gleaned from Google+ to improve search results. However, this is one area where Microsoft can beat Google, as it has the world’s largest social network, Facebook, backing it, while Google has to rely on just Google+, which remotely resembles a virtual ghost town compared to Facebook.
This could be a new beginning for Microsoft, and could finally help its Online Services division turn a profit by improving market share. You can check out the impact of any increase in Bing’s market share on Microsoft’s value using the chart above.
We currently have a $40 Trefis price estimate for Microsoft, which stands nearly 25% above its market price. Bing and other online services account for less than 1% of its overall value, but that could change soon.
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