Bing Not Just About Finding Information, but About Connecting to People

The evolution of Bing has taken Microsoft’s decision engine beyond search, making it capable of connecting people, not just returning results to user queries.

At least this is what Sean Suchter believes. Suchter, who heads up Bing’s social search team on Microsoft’s Silicon Valley Campus, is characterized by the Redmond company as a frontiersmen in the field of search, and especially in social search.

Users have undoubtedly noticed that Bing started integrating social networking data from Bing, and delivering not only a richer, but also a personal search experience.

Personally, I believe that the world has yet to see what the Bing and Facebook partnership is capable of delivering.

“There are more humans publishing content in social media than there are publishing Web pages, and this is a sea change. If you’re going to search, and you’re going to type something into that magic box to find whatever it is you’re looking for, it’s not just about finding information, it’s about connecting to people. That’s what our goal is,” Suchter reveals.

Tim Harrington, a senior software development engineer for Microsoft, notes that working on Bing feels very much like a start-up.

He doesn’t seem to want another position than at the avant-garde of social search, even though there’s still very much work ahead.

“Search is a frontier, but in particular social search is a frontier. It’s the most cutting edge thing on the Internet right now. It’s understood how to do traditional Web search – there’s lots more work to do, but it’s a game of inches,” Harrington explained.

“What’s not solved is harnessing social content to better understand a person’s query intent. That represents a huge potential. We can take search to the next level using our social media integration.”

Users can benefit from Bing search results enriched with social data provided that the sign into Facebook while using Microsoft’s decision engine.