1-800-Bing-411

 

Alongside the launch of the new search engine Bing, another free service called Bing 411 also debuted. As you may have guessed by its name, the service lets you call a phone number and get free 411 information (available in the U.S. only). Just like the standard, paid 411 service, you begin your call by saying your city and state and then you tell Bing 411 what business listing or other information you’re looking for. The service will attempt to locate the information and then it will connect you or you can choose to receive a text message instead.

To try Bing 411 yourself, call 1-800-Bing-411 (1-800-246-4411) for free

Source: Channel 10

Technorati Tags: microsoft,bing,411

Add Bing to Internet Explorer Search Bar

Internet Explorer (IE) 7 or 8 users can get the new Bing search helper add-on from ieaddons.com.

The add-on provides search suggestions, as in the screenshot above.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,bing

Announcing Bing Travel!

Live Search Farecast has joined forces with MSN Travel to become Bing Travel, one of the largest travel destinations on the Web. Preview us today.

Bing is built to help you cut through the clutter of the Web and connect with the information you need to make better decisions.

Comparison shopping for travel. Shop flights and hotels from hundreds of providers for destinations worldwide. Our planning tools will allow you to decide when and where to travel. Our Price Predictor will tell you when’s the right time to buy airline tickets, and our hotel Rate Indicator will show you where to stay.

When it's time to take a trip, Bing is the only site you need. In addition to Bing Travel, Bing Shopping is where you can start your search for everything from a new camera to a new wardrobe for your trip. Bing Local will help you decide which restaurants to visit, and Bing Health will answer your questions about staying well while you're on the road.

Source: Kumo Travel Communications (notice the screenshot below)

Technorati Tags: microsoft,bing,bing travel

Bing.com launches in multiple geographies

Bing.com – Microsoft’s rebranded search decision engine has launched today in multiple countries.

The screenshot above is from the Greek version of Bing.com, depicting the beautiful island of Santorini (planning for vacation there?).

The first impressions of Bing look very promising.

Technorati Tags: bing,santorini

Bing.com top features

• Auto-Suggest. Offers intelligent alternatives for search queries
• Instant Answers. Serves up information within search results, eliminating the need to click on anything
• Best Match. Provides useful links and information for definitive sites
• Related Searches. Points to deeper information available with one click
• Deep Links. Enables easy, direct access to relevant content within a site
• Quick View. Summarizes a Web site at a glance, before clicking through to the site
• Smart Video Preview. Previews a 30-second clip of videos simply by scrolling onto them
• Infinite Scroll. Provides easily browsed image results without clicking to a new page
• Quick Tabs. Tailors search results with one click

Source: Bing Product Guide (.xps)

Technorati Tags: bing,microsoft

Bing.com available worldwide by June 3rd, 2009

Microsoft Corp. today unveiled Bing, a new Decision Engine and consumer brand, providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions. Bing is specifically designed to build on the benefits of today’s search engines but begins to move beyond this experience with a new approach to user experience and intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, focusing initially on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

The new service, located at http://www.Bing.com, will begin to roll out over the coming days and will be fully deployed worldwide on Wednesday, June 3.

The new brand portfolio will include the following changes to existing Microsoft programs:

• Virtual Earth, will now be branded as Bing Maps for Enterprise. More information can be found here.

• Farecast is now a central part of Bing Travel.

• Microsoft’s popular cashback program, now dubbed Bing cashback, with more than 850 merchants and more than 17 million products available, will be fully integrated into the Bing Shopping experience.

Sources: Microsoft PressPass, Live Search blog

Massive Ad Campaign for Live Search rebranding to ‘Bing’

The software giant is set to launch an $80 million to $100 million campaign for Bing, the search engine it hopes will help it grab a bigger slice of the online ad market. That's a big campaign -- big compared with consumer-product launches ($50 million is considered a sizable budget for a national rollout) and very big when you consider that Google spent about $25 million on all its advertising last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence, with about $11.6 million of that focused on recruiting. Microsoft, by comparison, spent $361 million. Certainly Google has never faced an ad assault of anything like this magnitude.

People who've seen the Microsoft product suggest it's useful and has some nifty filtering tools, even though it's not a markedly different-looking interface, at least for text search (some of the multimedia search results, however, do look quite different from how Google currently displays them).

Source: adage.com