Social Meets Search with the Latest Version of Bing, Available to Everyone in US Today

A few weeks ago, we introduced you to the most significant update to Bing since our launch three years ago, combining the best of search with relevant people from your social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. After the positive response to the preview, the new version of Bing is available today in the US at www.bing.com. You can now access Bing’s new three column design , including the snapshot feature and social features.

According to a recent internal survey, nearly 75 % of people spend more time than they would like searching for information online. With Bing’s new design, you can access information from the Web including friends you do know and relevant experts that you may not know letting you spend less time searching and more time doing.

image

Today, we’re also unveiling a new advertising campaign to support the introduction of search plus social and announcing the Bing Summer of Doing, in celebration of the new features and designed to inspire people to do amazing things this summer.

New Bing Helps Search Go Social

Most things in life are better with people you trust; in fact, more than 90 percent of people reported they are likely to seek the advice of friends and family as part of their decision-making process around events, purchases, travel, and said they will even delay a decision to first get input from family and friends. We designed the new social features in Bing to make it easy to exchange ideas, share opinions and take action, giving searchers the same confidence they get from bouncing an idea off a friend. With Bing, it’s easier than ever to get that input and go from searching to doing.

Whether it’s making a purchase, choosing a restaurant or deciding what movie to see, our new Bing design offers unique ways to bring friends and experts right into the search experience. These social results complement the standard search results without compromising them, offering you the chance to start a conversation and get advice from your friends, experts and enthusiasts right within the search experience. We now show you which friends have liked or might know about content related to your query and will identify experts and enthusiasts that can provide recommendations on the topic of interest. You can also post a question and get help from your Facebook friends while you search, friends can easily see and reply to your questions on Facebook or Bing, and you can follow the activity feed to see your friends’ queries and posts in real time, never missing a beat.

Available for the first time today, we designed a new center column, called snapshot, which makes it easy to get things done in one place. It includes information, such as maps and reviews, and quick ways to take action, so booking a restaurant reservation or checking hotel rates are now quicker and easier. The snapshot feature offers restaurant reservations, hotel reviews, movie trailers and show times, maps, and more right within the search experience; giving you everything you need to take action in one place and eliminating the need to visit multiple sites to complete tasks.

New Bing Marketing Campaign

Today we are also excited to unveil a new advertising campaign, highlighting the new social features  and showcasing how Bing helps you spend less time searching and more time doing. The new ads will appear on television, including the MTV Movie Awards and the Mad Men season finale and online on sites like Hulu and Spotify. The campaign will feature Bing’s ability to transform ordinary searches – planning a trip, making a dinner reservation, deciding on a movie and organizing a wedding by combining the best of search and social networks.

To celebrate the new search experience and inspire people to take action in their communities, we are launching a summer-long effort within the marketing campaign, the Bing Summer of Doing. Over the summer, we will introduce an extensive social media campaign featuring daily searches designed to inspire doing while rewarding searchers with cool prizes. As part of the Bing Summer of Doing, today, we are joining forces with DoSomething.org, the largest U.S. organization for teens and social change, to inspire people to give back to their communities. The campaign kicks off today in Los Angeles at Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), with additional community volunteer events planned throughout the summer in cities across the nation, including Atlanta, New York and Chicago.

Today at HOLA, which provides thousands of underserved and at-risk youth with exceptional free after-school programs in academics, arts and athletics, we will work alongside volunteers and celebrities to beautify and renovate the community center. The day of service will conclude with an unveiling for HOLA students and a celebratory pizza party and surprise performance by Cody Simpson in the Lafayette Park Recreation Center.

A national daily challenge called “The Hunt, 11 Days of Doing,” which is designed to drive action, will be hosted online by DoSomething.org later this summer. The Hunt will inspire teens to participate in 11 days of challenges to create positive community impact. Beginning July 10, teens will be presented with a new series of challenges each day, focused on a specific cause. Teams will work together to complete the challenges and report back to show how they were able to create measurable impact in their community, all while collecting points to win prizes.

We encourage you to Bing.com and try our new search experience today. Let us know what you think.

– The Bing Team