Microsoft Considering Search Apps, Like In Bing Maps

Microsoft is doing some innovative things in allowing third party apps into the Silverlight version of Bing Maps. And the company may do something analogous in search, according to Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie in an interview at the D8 conference:

[Interviewer Walt] Mossberg also elicited a bit of news from Ozzie, who confirmed Microsoft is considering letting other companies integrate applications into Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

“That’s something we’d like to experiment with. We’re doing it in maps right now,” Ozzie said.

Like other search engines Microsoft presents enhanced results or “instant answers” at the top of the SERP for selected queries:

Search apps on Bing would probably offer a further-enhanced version of this, with more functionality or capabilities via the widget.

Apps are of course pervasive in the mobile market. And at the Google Developer “I/O” event a couple weeks ago Google announced an apps initiative for the browser. So apps are everywhere.

Yahoo has already done a similar or preliminary version of search apps with Search Monkey.