Over the past year, Bing has begun to make some major changes to the way they perform searches, specifically with the introduction of the Social Sidebar. This social sidebar lets you know about writers that know the most about the topic you are searching for, as well as friends that are talking about this topic on Social Media platforms. Roughly 2 month ago, Bing started doing Bing Authorship to the give writers more credit for the articles that they wrote. Bing has very slowly begun to creep on Google market share but they know they need to continue to improve in order to continue gaining ground.
Last month, Bing team up with Klout to begin displaying a person’s “Klout” score on the social sidebar. Klout is a company that attempts to measure a person’s internet influence through their activity on Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Foursquare and more. A Klout score will generally give you an idea of how much this person might know about a specific topic and how active they are on Social Media platforms. Now when you perform a search on Bing, you will be able to see that person’s Klout score, if they have one, and this could help you make a better decision on the article you choose to read.
Klout CEO Joe Fernandez elaborated on how this partnership will be good for both parties “Microsoft and Klout both believe that the growth of the social web and the increasing importance of your online identity are fundamentally transforming the Internet, making it even more important to understand people, not just pages. Like Microsoft, Klout is a friend to all social networks. We both want to help everyone discover relevant people regardless of the specific networks on which they’re active. And we believe we’ve only just begun to tap into the knowledge and insights “search through people” will enable, now and into the future.”
Although some people are very doubtful of just how Klout comes up with its score for digital influence, Klout is still a growing company as Social Media continues to grow itself. Bing still has a ways to go before making a dent into Google’s market share, but by continuing to evolve and add new features that are trending, Bing should continue to see more users and continue to slowly gain ground on Google.
-Mike Fedotowsky
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