14 DAY TRIAL // Google is pushing its Google Plus social networking site hard. In fact, it is pushing it so hard that users will have it linked to all of their search results.
Just head over to google.com and perform a search. This has been around for some time now, and those who have a Google+ account and use the search engine every day know it.
However, they should know that Microsoft’s Bing search engine can deliver results linked to user’s social networking accounts as well, but that it does so at a moderate level.
Bing does have a social search advantage over Google, as it has signed agreements with Facebook and Twitter for that. It is the only search engine to benefit from such deals, but it does not want to abuse them, it seems.
In a recent interview with AllThingsDigital, Bing Search Director Stefan Weitz explains some more on why Bing does not include more social data into its results.
He notes that Microsoft is making the move slow, in an attempt to better determine and understand what users’ social signals are all about. This is a complex process, and they do not want to rush it.
Social data did emerge in Bing search results, and more will be included there. However, they still try to figure out what “Liking” something on a social networking site is all about.
People behind Bing are trying to better understand users as persons. Similarly, Google is still in the process of understanding this whole idea, Stefan Weitz notes.
“But they are learning just like we are. They did what we didn’t want to do, which was make the user experience peppered with this stuff, with +1s everywhere, the Google+ content in the top corner,” he notes.
“I think [Google] realized we were ahead and they overextended. But I know a ton of guys there and they’re smart and they’re reacting to what has been said.”
Soon, Bing will start showing the fruits of this entire learning process, Stefan notes. The search experience will be different for all users, he says.
“All those lessons will be applied into something that I think is pretty interesting. How we think about social is always evolving, and the next turn of the crank is more differentiated than we’ve seen in the past,” he concludes.
