In an effort to separate themselves from other search engines while enhancing their user experience, Bing is adding more Facebook features to their search engine.
Starting on Thursday, registered Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) users who have connected accounts can view comments from the social media website on the sidebar as well as adding their own comments and “like” pages without leaving Bing.
Nektarios Ioannides (program manage for Bing) reported, “Now you can see what your friends might know about what you’re searching for and engage with them directly without leaving the search page.”
This bar makes it easy for users to interact within the Bing homepage without ever leaving or switching the page. Last year, the company launched the social sidebar with buttons for Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Twitter, Klout, and Foursquare. Bing has been updating the bar with small enhancements throughout the year to blend in social data with search results. This definitely makes for more interesting search results.
Bing’s biggest competitors include Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG). It’s important for the search engine company to have something that gives them more leverage to keep them relevant. By teaming up with Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Bing offers something users won’t find on competing search engines. Although Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has something similar as they add relevant Google+ social media posts in with search engine results, it’s important to point out that Google+ cannot compete with Facebook.
A representative for Bing also told WebProNews, “Bing already lets you view Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) updates and comments from your friends in sidebar, but now you’ll also be able to add your own Likes and comments to your friends’ Facebook posts directly from Bing. This is yet another step in Bing’s efforts to make it easier for people to leverage all of the incredible information across the web and content within their social networks to help them spend less time searching and more time doing.”
This sounds like a huge win for Bing.
