Mar 7, 2011 at 8:22pm ET by Pamela Parker

Are digital porkers continually outwitting your Angry Birds? Try Bing for the answer to vanquishing the porcine menace. In a first for Rovio, the developers of the hit mobile app, the company has struck a deal whereby Microsoft's Bing search will be integrated into the Angry Birds game. Angry Birds, which boasts versions for the iPhone, iPad and Android OS devices, has a US audience of 25 million players currently. It's also coming to Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone 7 later this spring, in another partnership between Rovio and Microsoft. "Angry Birds is a phenomenon that is growing rapidly an [...]

Bing Brings Local Deals To Mobile, PC

Mar 3, 2011 at 12:00pm ET by Greg Sterling

Bing is introducing deals for mobile (m.bing.com) and the PC. Mobile deals are available for the HTML5 sites for the iPhone and Android. They aren't yet in Bing's mobile apps but will be integrated soon according to Microsoft's Stefan Weitz. The source of deals here is The Dealmap, which is also the principal source of offers for Citysearch's recent Deals app. However Microsoft will probably include other deal sources later. The Dealmap immediately provides Bing with "more than 200,000 offers in over 14,000 locales locations across the U.S." It includes daily deals from a number of s [...]

One Mission Accomplished: Microsoft’s Deal With Nokia Injects Windows Into The Smartphone Conversation

Feb 14, 2011 at 12:54pm ET by Greg Sterling

We don't know yet whether the much-discussed deal between Nokia and Microsoft will yield the hoped-for results for both companies. But one thing is clear: it has already helped create a perception that there are now three mobile platforms that matter and Windows is one of them. The other two are of course Apple's iOS and Android. Until Friday Windows was regarded as a nice operating system without much developer support and one that might not make it to the mainstream. But given Nokia's global, although declining, footprint and its promise to work very closely with Microsoft many are now th [...]

Nokia Is The New Yahoo: Microsoft OS, Bing To Power Its Smartphones

Feb 11, 2011 at 8:09am ET by Greg Sterling

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Today, as widely expected, Nokia adopted Windows as its smartphone software. Its other mobile operating systems, Symbian and MeeGo, will not entirely disappear but Nokia will be building and distributing Windows Phones as its primary competitive offering to go head-to-head with the iPhone and Android. That could give Bing a huge boost as the default search engine (and search marketing platform) on those phones. For Microsoft this is a coup, for which it may have paid millions according to the NY Times. (Apparently Nokia won't be adopting Android any ti [...]

Bing Scores First In-Car Search Deal With Toyota

Jan 4, 2011 at 8:10pm ET by Matt McGee

Bing has landed its first deal to provide in-car search capabilities with today's announcement of Toyota Entune at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Entune is Toyota's new navigation system, a combination in-car hardware and mobile phone application that will be available in select Toyota vehicles later this year. Entune features Bing for Mobile (with Bing Maps) as one of its featured apps, giving drivers access to Bing search results via the dashboard's touch screen or by using Bing for Mobile's voice search capabilities. Users will first need to download the Entune app to th [...]

Bing Releases Version 2.0 Of iPhone App

Dec 16, 2010 at 9:45am ET by Barry Schwartz

Bing has released a new version of their iPhone app. This is a version 2.0 update and includes a huge array of new features. You can download the app by clicking here. Those features include: Quickly find the perfect restaurant based on your price range, cuisine, atmosphere, or location. Easily find great movies by name, location, or theater. Use the Plans feature to plan a night out, a dinner and a movie, or any event you want. See what plans your Facebook friends like and read their comments. More transit directions to help you plan your commute. Real-time transit updates for [...]

Bing Embraces OpenStreetMap, Hires Founder

Nov 23, 2010 at 1:45pm ET by Greg Sterling

Microsoft announced that it has hired CloudeMade and OpenStreetMap (OSM) founder Steve Coast as "Principal Architect for Bing Mobile," as well as a kind of liason to the "open map community." According to data in the Bing post announcing Coast's hiring, there are "more than 320,000 people" who have participated or are participating in the OpenStreetMap project. As part of this new effort, Microsoft is providing Bing Aerial Imagery to OpenStreetMap. Microsoft says that Steve Coast "will help develop better mapping experiences for our customers and partners, and lead efforts to e [...]

Bing For Android Now Available To Everyone

Nov 11, 2010 at 3:21pm ET by Greg Sterling

Bing for Android was previously only available on selected Verizon Android handsets. Now, according to Microsoft, it's available to everyone with an Android handset, from the Android market: We are pleased to announce that we have just released the Bing App to all major U.S. mobile operators through Android Markets. As we highlighted in August, Android users can find the Bing image of the day with clickable hotspots, image search, news, local business listings and reviews, instant answers for movies, flights movies, and more. I just downloaded it and can confirm it's there. There [...]

Google Starts Using Promoted Accounts On Twitter; Microsoft Uses Promoted Trends

Nov 11, 2010 at 3:17pm ET by Matt McGee

It looks like one of the early adopters of Twitter's "Promoted Accounts" advertising program is ... Google. I took the screenshot at left just moments ago when I visited my Twitter home page. Right at the top, under the "Who to follow" heading, is an ad encouraging me to follow Google Mobile's Twitter account, @GoogleMobile. Twitter just formally launched Promoted Accounts a little more than a month ago with "only a handful of companies" in the program. I'm waiting to hear from Twitter if Google has been added as a new advertiser and if Promoted Accounts is being opened to additional compan [...]

Windows Phones Finally Arrive With Dedicated Search Button

Oct 11, 2010 at 10:59am ET by Greg Sterling

Get in, get out. That's the idea behind the new Windows Phones: get access to content quickly and "get back to your life." Personalization and simplicity are also key themes of the new Microsoft mobile experience, which officially launched this morning with speeches from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega. Without mentioning Apple or Android, de la Vega lauded Windows Phones as offering a "breakthrough experience" . . . "unlike anything you've ever seen." As the iPhone heads to other US carriers (i.e., Verizon) AT&T is shifting its focus to embrac [...]

GOOG-411 Winds Down, Bing-411 Parties On

Oct 9, 2010 at 1:26pm ET by Greg Sterling

Yesterday Google announced that it was shutting down 800-GOOG-411, the free directory assistance (or voice search) service it launched in April, 2007. Back in those days the mobile landscape looked very different than it does today. It was challenging to conduct searches on most mobile phones and the iPhone was in its infancy. The first Android handset, the G1, was still almost 18 months away. The conventional wisdom was that "free DA" would become a booming segment in mobile, with lots of usage and potential ad revenues. Many of the large telco-incumbents that provide traditional, paid 411 [...]

Bing iPhone App Adds Flight Price Predictions & Better Maps

Sep 27, 2010 at 10:03am ET by Barry Schwartz

Bing announced they have released a new version of their iPhone app that has better travel and mapping features. The travel feature now takes advantage of their Farecast acquisition, where you can now get Bing flight price predictions on your iPhone. The price predictions let you know if you should buy or wait to buy a specific airline ticket. The second update is about making the maps on the iPhone app easier to read and see. The backdrop information now pops up, the font size has been increased, added a nearby feature and easy map switching. Here are some pictures: [...]

Nearly Ninth Inning For Microsoft Smartphone Effort

Sep 10, 2010 at 11:10am ET by Greg Sterling

Pardon the baseball metaphor but it seemed appropriate: the impending debut of Windows Phones (Windows Mobile 7) is a very high stakes moment for Microsoft, especially in the wake of Kin's recent failure. Redmond is now poised to spend a great deal of money to promote the new mobile OS in a highly competitive environment with little guarantee of success. If consumers and enterprises "take" to it Microsoft will be back in the mobile game. If not Microsoft may be shut out of a critical market (smartphones) for at least the foreseeable future. That would then probably require some hard-to-imag [...]

Bing Mobile App Comes To Verizon Android Handsets

Aug 30, 2010 at 2:32pm ET by Greg Sterling

Microsoft previously said there was going to be an Android version of Bing soon, following its successful iPhone app. Today there is -- for Verizon Android handsets only however. It was announced on the Bing Community Blog. I'm sure a more general Bing-Android app will be out in the not to distant future. Although it's overshadowed by the Verizon-Google relationship, Verizon has a major "default search" deal with the carrier (Android was exempted). However that relationship has apparently not yielded much search-volume fruit if recent StatCounter data is to be believed. Those data put Go [...]

Google, Bing & The Dance Of The iPhone

Aug 24, 2010 at 10:15am ET by Greg Sterling

The iPhone may have been outsold last quarter by Android, but Apple's phone remains at least for the time being the "it device" in the smartphone market. Google and Microsoft are both, let's say, "ambivalent" about the iPhone. And, in some ways, Google and Microsoft/Bing have changed places vis-a-vis the handset. Of the three major search rivals Google was the first and arguably most direct beneficiary of the iPhone. As the default search provider for the iPhone, Google saw its US mobile query volumes grow significantly. And now with the added benefit of Android penetration, the company has [...]

Behold “The King Of Bing Maps”

Aug 21, 2010 at 5:39pm ET by Greg Sterling

This summer Microsoft held a competition to promote and popularize its Bing Maps developer SDK and Map Apps. I was privileged to be one of the three judges who reviewed the finalists and voted on them across a range of criteria. The other two judges were Josh Lowensohn from CNET and Joe Francica from Directions Magazine. The three top vote recipients out of a list of 8 finalists were: Taxi Fare Calculator GeoSales Tax Ricky’s Data Viewer Finalists were judged on the basis of creativity, usefulness and visual appeal. Taxi Fare Calculator, a very practical app that cal [...]

Yahoo-Bing Mobile Search Transition To Happen At Same Time As Online, Ads To Be Handled By Same Teams

Jul 28, 2010 at 5:08pm ET by Greg Sterling

Microsoft and Yahoo have deferred talk of mobile advertising in previous discussions about the search transition. But now it has been made clear that mobile will transition at the same as the PC, and that the account teams will be the same for both segments. Here are the relevant FAQs from Microsoft Advertising's discussion of the transition: Q: Which account team will I work with on mobile search ads? A: Your mobile search ads will be managed by the same account team as your PC accounts. Q: How will Mobile search advertisers be transitioned? A: We are still finalizing our transition [...]

Check Out Bing On A Windows Phone 7 Device

Jul 22, 2010 at 1:59pm ET by Barry Schwartz

The Bing Search Blog just posted pictures of how Bing looks and acts on a Windows Phone 7 device. As you know, Bing will have prime real estate on the new Windows 7 devices. So making sure Bing acts and feels smooth and functional is extremely important to Microsoft. As a side note, similar to Google, Microsoft is giving away free Windows Phone 7 devices to their employees. Here are the pictures: [...]

If Windows Phones Don’t Succeed Can Bing?

Jul 14, 2010 at 1:29pm ET by Greg Sterling

Yesterday at the Bing Search Summit in San Francisco I finally got my hands (for about 30 seconds) on a Windows 7 phone. It had a very slick interface, although that was about all I got to see. The point of the Microsoft event was to highlight Bing's gains and momentum as well as show off some new things in the product pipeline. Part of the discussion was about Bing Search and Bing Maps on mobile devices. Accordingly the company released a few mobile statistics of interest: 23 million US users of Bing Mobile 160 percent YoY query growth 4.3 million downloads of Bing's iPhone app [...]

Bing & Yahoo Prompting iPhone Users To Switch Search Engines

Jun 24, 2010 at 12:43pm ET by Barry Schwartz

We knew that Bing was added as an option in the default search engines used on the new Apple iPhone iOS4. But if you try to searching on either Bing or Yahoo when your default search provider is Google, both will prompt you to switch to their own search engine. Not only will you be asked to switch, if you click okay, the switch will happen easily and automatically. Changing search providers on normal browser toolbars is not this easy, but on the iPhone, it can happen without a user really thinking about it. Go to Yahoo.com on your iPhone using iOS4. Note, I personally tested this on [...]

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