A post on the Bing Search Blog explained, “Here at Bing we don’t claim to have all the answers – but we know that together we can dream up something big and different.  To that end, we have teamed with the folks at O’Reilly Radar . . . .  Their editors will be curating multiple themes including social search, natural language, and ‘the web of things’ that explore what the industry sees now, and where it might be headed.”

Then the post continued, “Here’s how it works: every 3-4 weeks, the channel will feature a theme and a variety of videos, writings, and discussions on that theme so as to elevate the search discussion beyond market share, the feature of the week, or dwelling on past trends.”

Important Microsoft employees, including Principal Researcher Susan Dumais and General Manager Sean Suchter, should participate in the series and share their thoughts.

Obviously, this probably won’t extend to sharing corporate secrets, but it should give everyone a good idea of the official Bing stance on different subjects.

Bing is making changes of its own. It’s been a very big week for the search engine (or “decision engine”) if you will. It’s up to you to decide if any of these changes will have a direct effect on you, but some of them may attract more users in general, and if nothing else, that gives you even more of a reason to give Bing a fair amount of your focus.

Bing has made some design changes and added a bunch of new features. For starters, the quick tabs have moved from the left pane to the just below the search box.

“Secondly, you will see a new design aesthetic applied to Bing,” says Bing Corporate VP Brian MacDonald. “We have tried to bring you an experience grounded in clear readable typography that helps you find your way and organize information. With the new design the rich content in Bing really stands out from pages that are clean, light, open and fast. Result pages are not presented in a one-size-fits-all-layout – instead, Bing results pages are richly and visually organized, making the whole search experience feel dynamic and alive.”

Bing has launched some new entertainment features for music, games, TV, and movies. In addition to an entertainment hub at bing.com/entertainment, users can now find richer search results in these categories.

“76 percent of people use search to help find and navigate their entertainment options online, but only 10 percent say they have a trusted place to go,” says Bing Senior VP Yusuf Mehdi. “So we see a great opportunity to help customers make important entertainment decisions — from deciding what movie to buy or see, which TV shows to watch online or on your TV, what music to listen to, how to find and safely play your favorite casual games – Bing is making a first step today to help make entertainment on the web easy and fun, so you spend less time searching for entertainment and more time doing the stuff you love.”

Bing is now putting lyrics to songs on the search results page, as well as full length streaming of over 5 million songs (in partnership with Microsoft’s Zune branch). Users can stream any of these songs once at their full length. After that, the song will allow for a 30-second preview. Of course users are given the option to buy songs from Zune, iTunes, or Amazon.

Bing is now providing info on over 35,000 games, including reviews, cheats, and walkthroughs. In addition to that, Bing is offering about 100 games that can be played right from Bing.

“Just Search, Click. Play . So you can now search for your favorite casual game, and with one click, be playing the game,” says Mehdi. “This is cool for a couple of reasons. First, it’s easy. Second, hosting the games inline means you can be sure they are actually games and not malware. Finally, the Microsoft Games team included some fun social features that allow you to actually invite friends from your social network to play with you right from the game.”

Bing is now offering thousands of episodes from over 1,500 shows (including some HD). They also provide guide information.

Highlights include:

- The Bing Webmaster Tools have been re-engineered from the ground up to offer more data, including enhanced charting functionality, through a modern, improved user interface. The new tools remain web-based, and basic functionality will be available through most web browsers.

- The tools assess performance in several key areas, including crawl, index and traffic. Each area will offer granular data going back as far as six months with enhanced, on-the-fly adjustable charting, enabling webmasters to focus on the timeline trends that are most meaningful to them.

- The update also includes a new experience built with Silverlight, featuring rich visual charts to help webmasters quickly analyze several months of data to identify trends and drive insights.

More here.

You know this history by now. Here’s what the companies have to say:

“This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry, and I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development,” said Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz. “Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides. Advertisers will also benefit from scale and enjoy greater ease of use and efficiencies working with a single platform and sales team for premium advertisers. Finally, this deal will help us increase our investments in priority areas in winning audience properties, display advertising capabilities and mobile experiences.”

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, “Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company,” said Ballmer. “Success in search requires both innovation and scale. With our new Bing search platform, we’ve created breakthrough innovation and features. This agreement with Yahoo! will provide the scale we need to deliver even more rapid advances in relevancy and usefulness. Microsoft and Yahoo! know there’s so much more that search could be. This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.”

Key Terms as highlighted in the announcement:

- The term of the agreement is 10 years;

- Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing Web search platforms;

- Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology;

- Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process;

- Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force;

- Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology;

- Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites;

-  Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88 percent of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first five years of the agreement; and

- Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.

- Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country;

- At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million; and

- The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

source:http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/07/29/mirosoft-and-yahoo-finally-announce-deal

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it is releasing the code for Windows 7 to PC manufacturers, keeping the software company on track to have machines running its new operating system in the stores by late October.

The move means Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc, Acer Inc and other computer makers can start to load up new PCs, laptops and netbooks with the operating system, the successor to the unpopular Vista.

Both Microsoft and the manufacturers are hoping the full launch of Windows 7, scheduled for Oct. 22, will help lift PC sales out of the slump caused by the global economic downturn, and give the holiday shopping season an extra lift.

Manufacturers have been testing early versions of Windows 7 for several months, but this week marks the release of the “gold code,” according to a Lenovo Group Ltd executive, referring to the software industry jargon for the finished product.

PC makers no longer have to fly discs in helicopters to their manufacturing plants, as the transfer is now done electronically. But it still marks a dramatic day as manufacturers hustle to get new products into stores in time for the release date.

Machines that have Windows 7 installed, or devices that are compatible with it, will simply have the Windows 7 logo on them, a Microsoft executive said. The company will not be splashing the word “capable” around in marketing efforts, after it received complaints at its last launch that some machines branded “Windows Vista Capable” could only run the lower-end versions of the software.

Few industry watchers expect such problems to hit Microsoft this time around as the company has spent more time making sure PCs will be able to run the new software.

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