Microsoft is planning to make Bing profitable in the next several years, by enhancing the precision and relevance level of the service offered by the search engine.
Bing has already started that initiative by giving data and information, such as flight data, product results, sports information, etc. However, such information are being provided by Google as well, and so Bing has not been able to meet its objective yet.
The Microsoft website has been flooded with messages from unhappy Hotmail users who are complaining of missing e-mails in their account. There seems to be a new bug that deleted e-mails from the users' inboxes. A lousy way to begin a year for the Hotmail users.
MSNBot will be renamed to BingBot on 1st October this year, as said by the Bing Search Blog
The whole Microsoft's Bing team has been busy in testing the beta bot since November of last year. With effect from 1st October, this beta label would be removed from the Bot and it would be renamed as BingBot.
Yahoo! has filed a document with SEC saying that Microsoft failed to finalize the deal by October 27, 2009. Although, there is a statement in the document saying that progress was being made.
Here's the extract:
Microsoft has launched their Mobile Behavioral Targeting Solution, which means all of the powerful behavioral targeting options, categories and segments that were previously available on their online properties will now be available to buyers of their mobile display inventory.
Mobile behavioral targeting will help the advertisers reduce their advertising waste and refine their ROI of their mobile ad campaigns by targeting the consumers who are interested in various product categories. Popular advertiser categories such as Retail, Technology, Travel, Automotive, Financial Services, Health, Lifestyle and more are available for purchase.
In an attempt to encourage searchers to use Bing more, Microsoft has come up with a great idea recently. Microsoft announced a “Bing stimulus package”, which is a Cashback program as per which searchers will get cashback rewards as high as 50 percent upon purchasing products from select merchants. The cashback offer starts 10 August for a limited time.
Microsoft Advertising, along with other ad agencies is taking part in a contest named, “The Big Ad Gig” . The contest will feature eight contestants competing for a job at a top ad agency. The New York Times Building will host the contest at 10:00 AM on Thursday, September 24, in conjunction with Advertising Week 09.
After months of speculation, finally Yahoo and Microsoft search and online advertising deal is now official.
As per Yahoo’s Carol Bartz:
Finally the long suspense and wait is over. Microsoft is finally launching its search engine with a new name- Bing. Bing is much like Live Search, with new added features and technologies like Powerset. Boasting of being the new Decision engine rather than the usual search engine, it is playing upon three key areas. As per the website it focuses on “features like cashback, where we actually give you money back on great products, and Price Predictor, which actually tells you when to buy an airline ticket in order to help get you the best price — help you make smarter decisions, and put money back in your pocketâ€.
Microsoft has finally decided close down the Question and Answer portal, MSN QnA by May 21, 2009.
“At this time, we are closing the QnA site, but the experience of running QnA and gathering all of the great feedback you’ve shared with us will certainly influence future product direction.â€
The beta version of QnA was launched in August 2006 and also underwent a major upgradation about a year ago.
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