The first half of 2012 has seen many internet powerhouses either merge together or team up with one another to boost their market reach and influence. Facebook bought out Instagram in order to release its new product Facebook Camera. Just last month Google teamed up with Zagat to help improve the rating system used on Google+ and Google searches. This allows users to leave more detailed reviews of their experience, while helping others find exactly which type of place they are looking for based on price, décor, service, etc. In responses to this, Apple and Yelp teamed up to improve its maps application and to improve on Siri.
Yelp didn’t stop there. On June 14th, 2012, Yelp announced that it will also be teaming up with Bing Local in an attempt for Bing to compete with Google+ Local’s new system. In a press statement, Yelp announced “Yelp will surface content including, review snippets, photos, business attributes, and more, to Bing users in the U.S.”. The Yelp system is not yet live on the Bing Local searches, but Bing released this sample to show what Bing will look like.
Bing also will be releasing its new search tool called “Snapshot”. This will appear as a column on the right side of search results when you search a specific restaurant. The goal is to give the user an immediate overall experience of the restaurant and what they can expect. “Snapshot” includes average ratings from a number of different listing sites, as well as a map including directions and a photo of the restaurant itself.
These new additions from Bing should prove to be nice boost to the company and its stock prices. In the ever changing world of the internet, it goes to show that you must continue changing in order to keep up. From a business owner stand point, news like this should stress the importance of listing sites and webmasters. Making sure your company website has webmasters for both Bing and Google is a necessity. Now that Google and Bing are pulling content from sites like Yelp, Zagat, CitySearch, etc, it is extremely important to make sure your company is listed on those sites and that you continue to monitor and improve on your reviews. The internet will never be stagnant, and neither should you!
– Mike Fedotowsky
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