Bing Blogs

Content Creation Ideas and Issues

Duane Forrester — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:33:00 GMT

Is creating useful content really that hard? That kind of depends on who is defining “useful”. From the POV of the person creating it, “useful might look like “300 words built around <insert keyword>, answer <three> key questions as listed, scan for typos and grammar, then post. Move on to the next topic. In fairness, we know not everyone follows that pattern, but far too many do.

“Useful” to the searcher might look more like “I’ve asked the engine to find me <insert query here>, but I know I only entered two words and really, to get to what I’m actually after, I’d have to type out a few sentences. First site looks solid, lots of text, good images, an embedded video, but it looks like a lot of reading. The second site seems to have lots of lists, but less content overall. Back to site number one to read for a bit.

And to the engine, well, “useful” is more aligned with what the searcher went for, with intelligence around engagement added from past similar queries.

So let’s just agree there are different ways to define “useful” and get into some ideas on how to create content.

Stock ‘n Awe

A lot of ecommerce sites take this approach, then are disappointed when their products don’t rank well. You take an inbound product feed, stitch it into your platform to populate several thousand products, and set the system up to create categories, listing pages and individual product pages for everything inbound in the feed. You’ll often get an image (or more than one), a description, some specs, a product listing number, maybe some review data (if you’re lucky), a title for the product page, a manufacturer’s suggested price and a few other odds and ends.

On the surface, this is a perfectly logical approach to the scale issues ecommerce sites often face.

But it’s hardly ideal from the view of the engine, and often from that of the searcher. Searchers often have very discrete questions. Questions that the normal manufacturer-supplied, API-driven data points just don’t cover. And from the engine’s POV, which “one” of the thousands of instances of that same product scattered across the web is the one that should rank on top?

So what’s an ecommerce site to do? Give up? Turn the virtual sign and call it a day? Hardly. They get crafty.

…and while Pinterest CAN help, I’m not talking about that kind of crafty.

I’m suggesting they stack all of their URLs in a spreadsheet, assign a dollar value to each URL, sort the whole thing by dollars and view the worth of their URLs based against revenue. It’ll open your eyes to where the actual valuable pages on your site exist. And from there?

Roll up your sleeves and start optimizing folks. Those top 10, 20, 50 pages are the ones to really dig deep and start crafting unique content on. Even a site with 100K pages can follow this formula (I first heard of this formula from Matt Bailey, BTW), and with time and attention, craft truly unique and useful pages that searchers will engage with.

Ponder and Publish

Another approach is tried and tested. Keyword research, leading to plain old typing. This approach has a number of flavors, of which my favorite is in-line keyword research coupled with deep topical knowledge to produce relevant content, rich in detail and ultimately, “useful”.

You can do your keyword research in advance, or on-demand, this is completely your choice as the data doesn’t change that fast when approaching content building this way to make a massive difference. Unless, of course, you’re targeting seasonal phrases. Then hours can matter.
Most bloggers follow this path, creating content a page at a time, the old fashioned way. While it is time consuming, it’s also capable of creating probably the highest quality content around. Being hand son and creating the content from scratch ensures a better product, built to your individual standards. And therein lies the rub. If your standards are low, the show’s over. And this isn’t to say YOUR standards ARE low, but if a competitor does a better job, well, they’re better.

eBay has Taught You Well

If there is one thing eBay has taught millions of people, it’s how hundreds can sell the identical product online and still make money. The devil is in the details, as they say. So what can you learn from eBay selling?

Most people who are successful on eBay treat it as a business. They take great photos, they take lots of photos, they make videos, they share contact information, they answer questions quickly, they cross link to relevant other products they’re selling.

It’s the approach to include enough information that a shopper knows they need look nowhere else that drives many to success. By anticipating a shopper’s needs and questions, and addressing them obviously and up front, the shopper knows their search has ended, and they can make a purchase decision.

What’s Yours is Mine

This is the notion of using syndicated content for your own pages. If you’re using content provided form another source, it might not work the way you hoped. Large content aggregators sometimes see this work for them, as smaller partners may not rank as well on a per-page basis, and the added trust in the brand helps the syndicated version of the content rank better. But for most websites, this scenario cannot be relied upon. And over time, as trust grows in the originator of the content, even that big brand may see ranking slide using syndicated content.
If you’re thinking of turning to an articles website, and hoping to use something from there to fill in your pages, guess again. We know you didn’t write it, and let’s be honest here…have you seen the quality of much of what gets published there?

This brings us to an interest twist. Just hire a writer, right?

Well, maybe…

A writer is paid to write. Savvy writers will look to sell their work in more than one location, as it means more money for their effort. This puts you in a pickle. How do you ensure what your paid writer is creating is only going to be used on your website? Contracts can help, sure, but I the end, it’s tough to police, costly to police and your site may suffer while you try to sort it all out.

I Own Your Words

Ah, guest blogging and good old fashioned User generated Content (UGC). Time honored traditions to getting content created, right? Well, kind of, and not without pitfalls.

Lets’ look at UGC first.

First off, you need to face the fact that UGC won’t boost rankings. If you think random comments on a page will be enough to help us rate you higher, well, that’s not going to happen. And why would you want it to? Have you read comments on CNN lately? Some just go wrong and off track almost immediately. Would you really want the engines to rate you based on THAT stuff? Now, that’s not to say all UGC is bad, but on balance, it’s tough to rely on complete strangers to create quality content with enough frequency to make a difference to your rankings.

And there is one small tidbit that shouldn’t be overlooked. We know you didn’t build that content.

Guest blogging, over the last few years, has been the go-to source for quality link building, as well as content creation. And yes, guest blogging can play a role in your content creation plan, but be careful not to rely on it too heavily. There is no percentage to share here, but if your site is populated with content from other people, all with links from content they wrote to another (often unrelated) site, you might be in jeopardy of starting to become a non-sales version of an articles website.

Just be sure to be feeding your own work into the mix. And watch those link signals. Being too accepting of “loosely related” bloggers might have you telling us you’re related to things which everyone will have to admit is a stretch. You’re a food blog. A guess post talking about a new melon baller and linking to their sales page starts to look less informative and more advertorial in nature, so to paraphrase a favorite movie, choose wisely.

There are approximately 465 million ways to create content today. Hybrid models exist and while most paths to creating content won’t overtly hurt you, many simply fail to deliver the goods searchers want. To be a hero, it is said you must put others first. Be a hero. Think of your visitor’s needs first and foremost. Create content they find compelling enough to share and rich enough to stay engage with.

Duane Forrester
Sr. Product Manager
Bing Webmaster Tools
@duaneforrester

Automating the Windows Map App

Bing Maps Blog — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:52:19 GMT

Windows allows a Windows Store application to register as the default handler for a certain URI schema. This process is called Protocol Activation and it can be leveraged in the WinRT as well as the WinJS framework.

The Windows Map app is registered for protocol activation and the URI schema is documented here. Through protocol activation you can control the map view, find places or business listings, calculate routes or even map entire collections of points of interest.

In this quick example, we use this capability to display the location where we captured a photo. Rather than starting from the scratch, we build upon the Simple Image Sample from the Windows Dev Center. The first scenario in this application reads and writes properties of an image – including the coordinates (latitude and longitude) where we captured the photo.

There are a few changes that we need to apply to this app in order to launch the Map app and center on this location.

In the application markup language of scenario 1 we do the following:

Replace the boxes for degrees, minutes and seconds as well as the one for the compass orientation with a single text-box in which we will display the latitude and longitude in decimal degrees.
Add a button that will launch the Map app with parameters.

The new XAML will look like this:

<TextBlock Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="6" TextWrapping="Wrap" 
	 Style="{StaticResource BasicTextStyle}" 
	 HorizontalAlignment="Left" VerticalAlignment="Center">Latitude
</TextBlock> 
<TextBox Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="6" Margin="0,0,10,10" x:Name="LatTextbox" 
         HorizontalAlignment="Left"  Text="" Width="300" /> 

<TextBlock Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="7" TextWrapping="Wrap" 
	 Style="{StaticResource BasicTextStyle}" 
	 HorizontalAlignment="Left" VerticalAlignment="Center">Longitude</TextBlock> 
<TextBox Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="7" Margin="0,0,10,10" x:Name="LonTextbox" 
         HorizontalAlignment="Left" Text="" Width="300" /> 
<Button x:Name="myPhotoLoc" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="8" 
        Click="myPhotoLoc_Click" Width="300" Margin="0,0,10,0" >Open Map</Button>

Next we look at the code behind and in the function GetImagePropertiesForDisplay. We replace the code that splits the coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds with the snippet below.

' Do a simple check if GPS data exists. 
   If  (m_imageProperties.Latitude.HasValue) AndAlso  (m_imageProperties.Longitude.HasValue) Then 
     LatText = Math.Round(m_imageProperties.Latitude.Value,  6).ToString
     LatTextbox.Text = LatText
  LonText = Math.Round(m_imageProperties.Longitude.Value,  6).ToString
  LonTextbox.Text = LonText
 End If

We also introduce a new function to handle the click-event on our button and launch the Map app:

Private Async Sub myPhotoLoc_Click(sender As Object, e As RoutedEventArgs)
  ' Create the URI to launch  from a string. 
  Dim uri = New Uri("bingmaps:?collection=name.Photo%20Locations~point." + _
     LatText + "_" + LonText + "_My%20Photo&sty=a")
  ' Launch the URI. 
  Dim success As Boolean = Await Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(uri)
End Sub

And that’s it. You’ll find the complete source code here.

Happy Mapping ☺

How To Load Spatial Data From SQLite In A Windows Store App

Bing Maps Blog — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:18:15 GMT

Sometimes it can be helpful to hold geospatial data locally and to distribute it with the application. In this example, we will use SQLite to store geospatial information and visualize it as a layer in the Bing Maps Control for Windows Store Apps.

SQLite is a software library that implements a self-contained, server-less, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine.

Preparing the Data

For this example we will be using trails which we retrieved from the King County GIS Data Portal. This data is available in Esri Shapefile format with coordinates in the North American Datum 1983 (NAD83) system. I converted them into a SQLite database with coordinates described as latitudes and longitudes with decimal degrees in the World Geodetic System 1984 (GS84) using the ogr2ogr command-line tool from Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL). The command for this conversion is:

ogr2ogr.exe -f sqlite -lco FORMAT=WKT "D:\Downloads\GeoData\King County\trail_SHP\trail.db" 
"D:\Downloads\GeoData\King County\trail_SHP\trail.shp" -t_srs EPSG:4326

Prerequisites

Since we are developing a Windows Store App, we need access to a Windows 8 machine as well as Visual Studio 2012. A free version of Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8 is available here.

For this project we require the “Bing Maps SDK for Windows Store Apps” as well as “SQLite for Windows Runtime” you can install both from Visual Studio 2012 by selecting “Extensions and Updates” from the menu “Tools” and searching for the respective SDKs in the online gallery.

We will also require a Bing Maps Key. If you don’t have one yet, you can follow the instructions to get a free trial or basic key.

Preparing the Project

Let’s start by creating a new project using the blank Visual C# template for Windows Store Apps.

Next we add references to the Bing Maps SDK, the Visual C++ Runtime and SQLite.

The Bing Maps SDK requires that we compile separately for each processor architecture. So we need to open the “Configuration Manager” and change the platform from “Any CPU” to a specific one – here “x64”.

We also require the “sqlite-net” library and we can add this from NuGet by opening the menu “Tools” → “Library Package Manager” → “Manage NuGet Packages for Solution” and searching for “sqlite-net”.

Finally we add the SQLite database trail.db to the folder “Assets” of the project, set the property “Build Action” to “Content” and “Copy to Output Directory” to “Copy if Newer”.

Adding the Application Markup

Now that our project is prepared, we open the MainPage.xaml add the namespace for the Bing Maps control and define the user interface. In the user interface, we load Bing Maps centered to a location in King County at zoom-level 13 and specify that we want to display the aerial imagery.

<Page 
   x:Class="SQLite_Blog.MainPage" 
   xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 
   xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
   xmlns:local="using:SQLite_Blog" 
   xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" 
   xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" 
   xmlns:bm="using:Bing.Maps" 
   mc:Ignorable="d"> 
<Grid Background="{StaticResource  ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}"> 
	<Grid.RowDefinitions> 
		<RowDefinition Height="140"/> 
		<RowDefinition Height="*"/> 
		<RowDefinition Height="Auto"/> 
	</Grid.RowDefinitions> 
   <TextBlock x:Name="pageTitle" 
   		   Text="WinRT and Spatial Data  from SQLite" 
   		   IsHitTestVisible="false" 
   		   Style="{StaticResource PageHeaderTextStyle}" 
   		   VerticalAlignment="Center" 
   		   Margin="30,0,30,40"/> 
   <bm:Map x:Name="myMap" 
   		Grid.Row="1" 
   		MapType="Aerial" 
   		ZoomLevel="13" 
   		Credentials="Your_Bing_Maps_Key"> 
		<bm:Map.Center> 
			<bm:Location Latitude="47.702894" Longitude="-122.054860" /> 
		</bm:Map.Center> 
	</bm:Map> 
   <TextBlock x:Name="myAttribution" 
   		   Text="Data provided by  permission of King County" 
   		   Grid.Row="2"/> 
 </Grid> 
</Page>

Adding the Code-Behind

In the code-file MainPage.xaml.cs we define a class that describes the SQLite table.

public class trail 
{
    public string OGC_FID { get; set; }
    public string WKT_GEOMETRY { get; set; }
    public string kc_fac_fid {  get;  set; }
    public string trail_name {  get;  set; }
    public string trail_type {  get;  set; }
    public string surf_type {  get;  set; }
    public string sitefacfid {  get;  set; }
    public string sitename {  get;  set; }
    public string sitetype {  get;  set; }
    public string owner {  get;  set; }
    public string ownertype {  get;  set; }
    public string manager {  get;  set; }
    public string managertype {  get;  set; }
    public string maintd_by {  get;  set; }
    public string mainttype {  get;  set; }
    public string shape_len {  get;  set; }
 }

For the class that will actually read the data and display it on the map, we import three libraries:

using Bing.Maps;
using Windows.Storage;
using Windows.UI.Popups;

The class that reads the trail-database copies it first in the local application directory. It creates a MapShapeLayer, reads through the table-records and adds the records for the trails to the layer before it adds the entire layer to the map.

One point to call out here is that the data is stored as Well Known Text (WKT) in SQLite. The WKT has the coordinates in the order Longitude and then Latitude while Bing Maps expects them in the order Latitude and then Longitude. So we have to swap the order of the coordinates.

public async void GetTrails()
{
   var uri = new Uri("ms-appx:///Assets/trail.db"); 
   var file = await StorageFile.GetFileFromApplicationUriAsync(uri);
   var destinationFolder = ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder;//local appdata dir 
   try 
   {
   await  file.CopyAsync(destinationFolder); //copied application local folder}} 
   }
   catch { }
   
   var dbpath = Path.Combine(Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder.Path, "trail.db");
   var db = new SQLite.SQLiteConnection(dbpath);
   var trails = db.Table<trail>();
   MapShapeLayer  shapeLayer = newMapShapeLayer();
   int numLocs = 0;
   int numTrails = 0;
   foreach (trail thisTrail in trails)
   {
   var wkt =  thisTrail.WKT_GEOMETRY.Replace("LINESTRING  (" , "").Replace(")", "");
   string[] wktArray = wkt.Split(',');
   LocationCollection bmPolylineLocs = new LocationCollection();
   for (var i = 0; i <  wktArray.Length; i++)
   {
   var loc = wktArray[i];
   var locArray = loc.Split(' ');
   bmPolylineLocs.Add(new Location(Convert.ToDouble(locArray[1]), 
   Convert.ToDouble(locArray[0])));
   numLocs  = numLocs + 1;
   }
   MapPolyline bmPolyline = new MapPolyline();
   bmPolyline.Locations = bmPolylineLocs;
   bmPolyline.Color = Windows.UI.Colors.Red;
   bmPolyline.Width = 5;
   shapeLayer.Shapes.Add(bmPolyline);
   numTrails  = numTrails + 1;
  }
  myMap.ShapeLayers.Add(shapeLayer);
  var myMsg = new MessageDialog("Loaded " + numTrails.ToString() + 
   " with " + numLocs.ToString() + 
   " locations" );
   await myMsg.ShowAsync(); 
}

Finally we add a call to this new class right after we initialize the app.

public MainPage()
{
  this.InitializeComponent();
  GetTrails();
}

And that’s it. Below you see a screenshot of the trails in King County on top of Bing Maps.

Happy Coding! ☺

Join Us To Discuss Tips for Making the Most Out of Your Summer Travels with Travel Expert and Founder of Vagabondish, Mike Richard

Bing Search Blog — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:06:00 GMT

Summer is officially here which means it’s finally time to go on your highly anticipated summer vacation! Travel logistics are squared away and your bags are packed – you are ready to begin your adventure! Now the only decision that remains is how you are going to spend your precious time on your trip. Finding family friendly activities and where to dine or grab a trendy craft cocktail in unfamiliar cities can be daunting. Join travel expert and founder of the travel website Vagabondish, Mike Richard to learn the tools and hear tips for traveling like a pro. Whether you plan to soak up the sun on a beach in the tropics, navigate through the streets of Rome or go on a cross country road trip, Mike has money saving tricks, tips for planning fun activities, and more to make your vacation as fun and stress-free as possible.

Mike is a Rhode Island native and travel junkie with an unhealthy addiction to backpacking, hiking and seeing the world. His advice, how-to tips and tall tales from around the world are a go to resources for travelers of all kinds.

To participate in the chat follow @Bing, @fareologist and @vagabondish on Wednesday, June 19 from 12-1 pm PT and include the hashtag #BingIt in your tweets.

-The Bing Team @Bing

Infoboxes for Native Windows Store Apps

Ricky Brundritt — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:35:43 GMT

Recently there has been a number of requests for information on how to create infoboxes using the Bing Maps Native control. Many developers who have used our JavaScript controls are used to an infobox control being available out of the box and are a bit surprised that there isn’t one in the Native control. This wasn’t an oversight, but really not needed. With the Native control, we have the ability to overlay user controls directly on top of the map and tie them to a location on the map. This means that rather than being restricted to having to use an infobox control that looks and feels the way we think it should, you have the ability to create an infobox that looks and feels how you want.

In this blog post we will take a look at how to create a simple infobox control. To optimize this application, we will use a common method of having one Infobox control which we will reuse and update rather than creating an infobox for each pushpin we create. This will drastically reduce the number of objects your application will need to render and keep track of. This same approach is recommended when using the JavaScript control as well. If using JavaScript, take a look at this blog post.

Creating the View

To start off, create a Blank Windows Store project in Visual Studio called BingMaps_Native_Infobox and add a reference to the Bing Maps SDK. If you are not familiar with how to do this, take a look at the Getting started with Bing Maps Windows Store Apps (Native) blog post.

Once your project is created, open up the MainPage.xaml file and add a reference to the Bing Maps SDK and add a map to the main Grid. Inside of the map, we will add two MapLayers and give the first layer a name of DataLayer. We will use this layer to add our pushpins to. We will put the infobox in the second layer and this will ensure that the infobox always appears above the data layer. For the infobox itself, we will use a Grid control and add some Textboxes for Title and Description information. We will also add a close button to the infobox. Putting this together, your XAML should look like this:

<Page
    x:Class="BingMaps_Infoboxes_Native.MainPage"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:local="using:BingMaps_Infoboxes_Native"
    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    xmlns:m="using:Bing.Maps"
    mc:Ignorable="d">

    <Grid Background="{StaticResource ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}">
        <m:Map Credentials="YOUR_BING_MAPS_KEY">
            <m:Map.Children>
                <!-- Data Layer-->
                <m:MapLayer Name="DataLayer"/>

                <!--Common Infobox-->
                <m:MapLayer>
                    <Grid x:Name="Infobox" Visibility="Collapsed" Margin="0,-115,-15,0">                        
                        <Border Width="300" Height="110" Background="Black" Opacity="0.8" BorderBrush="White" BorderThickness="2" CornerRadius="5"/>

                        <StackPanel Height="100" Margin="5">
                            <Grid Height="40">
                                <TextBlock Text="{Binding Title}" FontSize="20" Width="250" TextWrapping="Wrap" HorizontalAlignment="Left" />
                                <Button Content="X" Tapped="CloseInfobox_Tapped" HorizontalAlignment="Right" VerticalAlignment="Top"/>
                            </Grid>
                            <ScrollViewer HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" MaxHeight="60">
                                <TextBlock Text="{Binding Description}" FontSize="16" Width="290" TextWrapping="Wrap" Height="Auto"/>
                            </ScrollViewer>
                        </StackPanel>
                    </Grid>
                </m:MapLayer>
            </m:Map.Children>
        </m:Map>
    </Grid>
</Page>

Adding the Application Logic

If you try running the application now, an error will be thrown as we haven’t defined the CloseInfobox_Tapped event handler. To fix this, open the MainPage.xaml.cs file and add the following event handler:

private void CloseInfobox_Tapped(object sender, Windows.UI.Xaml.Input.TappedRoutedEventArgs e)
{
    Infobox.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
}

Next, we need to add some pushpins to the map. To do this, we will create a reusable function that takes in a Location, title, description and a reference to a MapLayer to add the pushpin to. When we create the pushpin we will store the title and description inside the Tag property of the pushpin. We will then add a Tapped event which we will use to open our infobox. Finally, we will add the pushpin to the layer. Add the following code to your application:

public void AddPushpin(Location latlong, string title, string description, MapLayer layer)
{
    Pushpin p = new Pushpin()
    {
        Tag = new Metadata()
        {
            Title = title,
            Description = description
        }
    };

    MapLayer.SetPosition(p, latlong);

    p.Tapped += PinTapped;

    layer.Children.Add(p);
}

public class Metadata
{
    public string Title { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }
}

Now we will create the PinTapped event handler. When the user taps the pushpin, we will take the metadata we stored in the pushpin and bind it to the Infobox. We will then make the infobox visibility and then use the MapLayer to set the position of the infobox.

private void PinTapped(object sender, Windows.UI.Xaml.Input.TappedRoutedEventArgs e)
{
    Pushpin p = sender as Pushpin;
    Metadata m = (Metadata)p.Tag;

    //Ensure there is content to be displayed before modifying the infobox control
    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(m.Title) || !String.IsNullOrEmpty(m.Description))
    {
        Infobox.DataContext = m;

        Infobox.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;

        MapLayer.SetPosition(Infobox, MapLayer.GetPosition(p));
    }
    else
    {
        Infobox.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
    }
}

We now have all the code we need to create pushpins that open up an Infobox when tapped. All we need to do now is create some pushpins. To do this, update the constructor to look like this:

public MainPage()
{
    this.InitializeComponent();

    AddPushpin(new Location(47.6035, -122.3294), "Seattle", "Seattle is in the state of Washington. ", DataLayer);

    AddPushpin(new Location(51.5063, -0.1271), "London", "London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom, and the largest city in the United Kingdom.", DataLayer);
}

If you run the application, you will see two pushpins on the map. If you tap on one, the Infobox will appear with the relevant information for that pushpin and look something like this:

You can take this a step further and create a custom UserControl that has a lot more advanced features. In the end you simply just need to add it to a MapLayer and set its position.

Bing Makes Voice Recognition on Windows Phone More Accurate and Twice as Fast

Bing Search Blog — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:00:00 GMT

If you’re using a Windows Phone in the US, you may have noticed that the voice capabilities on your phone have gotten better. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been rolling out updates to Windows Phone customers, to improve the speed and accuracy of voice to text and voice search. Now when you compose a text message or search using your voice, Bing will return results twice as fast as before and increase accuracy by 15 percent. Check out the updates in action in the video below:

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;vid=5c9155cc-c40d-45ed-9ee0-64327142e1e5&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;from=shareembed-syndication&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;src=v5:embed:syndication:" target="_new" title="Bing Makes Voice Search on Windows Phone More Accurate and Twice As Fast" data-mce-href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;vid=5c9155cc-c40d-45ed-9ee0-64327142e1e5&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;from=shareembed-syndication&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;src=v5:embed:syndication:"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Video: Bing Makes Voice Search on Windows Phone More Accurate and Twice As Fast&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Over the past year, we’ve been working closely with Microsoft Research (MSR) to address limitations of the previous voice experience. To achieve the speed and accuracy improvements, we focused on an advanced approach called Deep Neural Networks (DNNs). DNN is a technology that is inspired by the functioning of neurons in the brain. In a similar way, DNN technology can detect patterns akin to the way biological systems recognize patterns.

By coupling MSR’s major research breakthroughs in the use of DNNs with the large datasets provided by Bing’s massive index, the DNNs were able to learn more quickly and help Bing voice capabilities get noticeably closer to the way humans recognize speech. We also made a few improvements under the hood that allowed Bing to more easily identify speech patterns and cut through ambient and background noise – cutting down response time by half and improving the word error rate by 15 percent, even in noisy situations.

To read more about all the great research MSR is doing around DNN, check out this blog post. This is only the beginning of Bing’s work to improve speech and voice capabilities across Microsoft devices and services, and you can expect more from us in the future. In the meantime, start talking to Bing on your Windows Phones and let us know what you think about the improvements. You won’t be disappointed.

- The Bing Speech Team

Neue Features für die lokale Suche auf Bing

Bing Deutschland — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:15:36 GMT

Es gibt Neuigkeiten bei der Verwendung der lokalen Suche auf Bing. Die Anwendung ist nochmals deutlich überarbeitet und optimiert worden. Der Nutzer bekommt jetzt noch genauere Infos bei der Suche nach lokalen Einrichtungen wie Restaurants, Veranstaltungen oder Institutionen vor Ort. Neu bei der Suche sind größere und interaktive Karten, hilfreiche "Call-to-Action-Buttons" sowie die Integration von nur einem Suchfeld auf der Webseite. Nimmt man zum Beispiel die Suche nach "Restaurants...(read more)

Links, Likes and Le Retweets

Duane Forrester — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:28:32 GMT

Shortcuts. Such a negative term, isn’t it? Perhaps we should call it “seeking efficiencies”? But you, it won’t matter what you call it, it’s a bad path to follow when seeking support for your SEO and social activities.

Every day, webmasters are surprised to learn that some tactics they thought were safe because some so-called expert told them it would work, are actually harming their chances of ranking well and driving traffic.

Links

Yup, links still matter. They are still a trust signal that can help ranking. But before you go crazy building links, you need to understand the relative value. None of this should be news.

Direct, one-way links are best. You know, the kind where your site impressed someone enough that they blogged about it, or shared it socially. These are called organic, but you can also think of them as spontaneous as you are not actively working on building them – they simply appear. These are best as they allow the engines the strongest confidence that the link is trustworthy.

I am constantly amazed at the businesses who claim these are the types of links they build. If they truly were building this way, it would be highly cost ineffective for them. Instead, they operate on the network principle, telling you their network is so large it’s safe. Not so, as by their very nature, search engines see and scan the entire internet, so seeing a pattern is pretty easy – even if the pattern is spread across thousands of sites.

Reciprocal links still have value. Shocked? Don’t be, as the value may not be what you’re thinking. They don’t hold a lot of value in terms of lifting rankings, but they are capable of driving traffic to your site, so a recip link can be useful for new sites in terms of direct traffic (assuming the source has traffic of its own, and the link is well placed), and these links (as with almost any other link) can help us find your content I the first place. Trusting them is much more difficult as its still way easy to engineer recip links between sites.

Typically, they won’t harm rankings, so having them in your link profile is not something to fear. As with apples, potato chips, steak and bourbon, moderation is the key.

Advertising links are fine for directly traffic, but stifle the passing of value to a site. Since those networks selling you packages of links noted above are, in fact, selling links plain and simple, when we see these, we don’t pass value.

So if you’re still buying ads – in whatever slick sales format they come in today – at best you’re wasting your company’s money. At worst you’re setting yourself up to damage the domain in a bigger way. Anything resembling a link farm should be avoided, as they are obvious to us, easily seen through, and frankly, we’re less likely to trust your domain when we see it playing on a link farm.

Likes

We all want ‘em, and therein lies the problem. Because likes are sought after, people try to sell them. Another dead end, as schemes to drive value by inflating likes artificially are so basically obvious to us, it’s laughable. Similar to how a link farm operates, like farms exist, promising to supply hundreds or thousands of likes in a short period. Yeah, yeah, they claim to be “all natural, totally organic”, etc., etc. Simply put, they are not and are easily seen.

Again, in the vast majority of cases, we simply ignore the effort and signals generated.

Now, naturally generated likes can actually help, as it’s a form of trust signal we understand and want to listen to. After all, if your new widget is setting the world alight, and everyone is liking it, that’s a strong signal to us it’s popular. And since our job is to show the best content to our searchers, it’s the perfect fit of consumers telling us what’s important and the engine responding by ranking that item higher.

Just keep in mind that social signals are only a few of the signals processed, so focusing on them to the exclusion of other signals gives us a lopsided view. Again, balance works best.

Tweets and Retweets

Similar to likes, these have become a commodity. Similar to likes, you should avoid buying them. If the pattern emerges that appears to be engineered, we’ll ignore it – no matter how much it’s costing you. Again, you spend money and get zero return in search.

But what about promoted tweets? Well, it’s been paid for, so we simply look past it in terms of transferring value. We understand the revenue models of the company and we understand the goal of such tweets is not to engineer anything with our rankings, so no drama there. As with so many things, it comes down to intent.

The flip side to many of these tactics is that as a business, it’s perfectly within your rights to sell links on your site and buy advertising on Facebook and Twitter. We have no issue with these points, but help us understand. The buying ads and promotion on Facebook and Twitter are easy to understand. But if you’re selling ads embedded in the middle of your content, meant to look like a normal, one-way link, that’s tougher to explain. And were likely to not believe you simply because, well, you know, so many spammers try this and it’s a really abused tactic. Stick the links off to the side, label them and maybe wrap <nofollow> tags around them. Then you’re signaling a clear intent to us.

Just keep in mind that for every tactic, some will push the limits. We see this and take actions as we think needed. Most are subtle and involve simply not passing the value. In a few instances, though, the actions involve lowering rankings or deindexing content or domains.

Do yourself a favor and avoid shortcuts, or whatever they’re being sold as these days.

Roll your sleeves up and create an experience so compelling that visitors feel the need to share it. You do that and you’ll ride the front seat of the e-ticket ride for a long time to come.

Duane Forrester
Sr. Product Manager
Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing’s Exciting New Collaboration with Apple

Bing Search Blog — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:05:42 GMT

At WWDC Apple announced iOS 7, which brings Bing web search integration to Siri, Apple's breakthrough personal assistant, for the first time.

Starting this Spring with iOS 7, Bing will power Siri's new integrated web search. When users ask Siri a question either the specific answer or web search links will now be delivered automatically so users can find information even faster.

Bing was designed from the outset to be a great place for web search helping customers quickly find what they are looking for and get more out of search. We are thrilled that all the great results people have come to know and love on Bing.com.au will now be available to Siri users on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Making sure customers can have access to the power of Bing where and when they need it has been a big focus of the work we have done over the past few years, and we are excited to work with Apple to deliver it to Siri users this Spring.

- Bing Australia Team

Experimentation and Continuous Improvement at Bing

Bing Search Blog — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:58:00 GMT

One technical problem in Web search is how best to measure the quality of search results. Our powerful machine learning systems correct the spelling of your query, interpret your search intent, differentiate quality pages from junk, rank documents from our index of tens of billions of documents, and optimize whole-page layout. These systems, and many more, must all be optimized towards user satisfaction. The problem is that there is no perfect measure of objective user satisfaction, so we use surrogate measures. Surprisingly, once your machine learning systems are powerful enough, your choice of surrogate measure has a strong influence on the kind of results you return. In this blog post Nick Craswell and Filip Radlinski describe some of the issues motivating their award winning research paper on measuring search results which was presented at the international conference WSDM-2013.

- Dr. Harry Shum, Corporate Vice President, Bing R&D

In information retrieval (IR) research there is a strong focus on relevance measurement. For example this year at SIGIR, which is one of the largest research conferences in the area, there are two sessions dedicated to IR evaluation, plus one tutorial and one workshop. As members of a research team at Bing, we get to work on a large range of interesting problems in machine learning, data mining and information retrieval. A recurring theme is relevance measurement. In this blog post we’ll outline some of our work in the area.

From the broad range [1,2] of possible measures of search quality, we will cover two major alternatives: online and offline. Our goal is to describe what they are and why we need both. Then we’ll describe our recently-published work at WSDM-2013 [3], which is about online measurement.

Online vs Offline Evaluation

To provide the most relevant and useful search results, modern search engines must try to correctly predict what people are trying to accomplish. If someone types the query ‘florida songs’, the engine has to interpret whether the searcher meant songs about Florida, or songs by rapper Flo Rida, or something else. It’s difficult to know the right interpretation without asking the person who typed the query, or deducing their intent based on their behavior. That’s where online measures come in, these are the ones that involve feedback from a real user in context of what they are doing.

At the same time, we’d like the search to return results of high quality. For instance, imagine two pages with the same information, but one has many more ads and pop-up windows. Imagine two pages with the same information, but one is from the National Institute of Health and the other is from an abandoned health blog with only one entry. Or imagine two pages from the same site, but one directly answers your query while the other one requires you to browse within the site. To tell which pages are best, we perform offlineevaluation. We write detailed guidelines on what constitutes a high-quality page, and ask trained experts to annotate which pages are best.

Now the problem. The paid experts, despite all their training, have difficulty guessing correctly whether it was Florida or Flo Rida. The only person who knows the correct interpretation is the one who typed that query, and we need their online feedback to identify the true intent. Meanwhile it is difficult for online experiments to detect subtle issues with page quality. People who see slightly the wrong page or the wrong site may still find the information they need but we could have provided a better result. To identify such problems, and define guidelines on what constitutes a good search result, we use offline annotations from our trained experts.

We need both online and offline measurement to correctly measure relevance. Now let’s look at how we employ online metrics.

Using Online Evaluation

A typical online experiment compares some new version of Bing to the existing version, to see whether the new idea is an improvement on average. When we set up such an experiment, we want three things. First, it must give the right answer. This might seem obvious, but if people prefer the new version we want our experiment to detect that in a reliable way. Second, the evaluation must not degrade the search experience. For instance, we could pop a window up to ask you whether you were successful after searching, but that would be intrusive and annoying. Ideally you would not even know that you are in an experiment. Finally, we would like the evaluation to give us an answer fast. If an idea makes Bing better, we would like to have it out the door as soon as possible. If an idea fails we want to know that quickly too, so we can stop showing it to people.

Since there is no questionnaire, the main thing we can observe is your search behavior:

· You enter your search terms, we retrieve results, and you respond to these results by clicking on some, or typing a new query.

We do an online evaluation by measuring these responses.

To compare the two versions of Bing, one option is to do a controlled experiment, which is also known as an A/B test. Each person in the experiment is assigned either to a control group that sees system A or a treatment group that sees system B. We then measure the responses of each group, to try and infer which system was better. For instance, if people in group A select results more quickly than in group B, that would indicate that system A is better, all other things being equal. Our researchers spend a lot of time studying controlled experiments[4] to understand how changes in user responses correspond to improvements in user satisfaction.

An alternative to an A/B test is called a paired comparison, where everybody is shown a mix of the results produced by both the A and the B systems. This way, everyone sees some results that come from Bing today, and some from Bing with our new idea.

It is a blind experiment, meaning that you can’t tell which came from Bing today, and which came from our new idea. Showing A and B together means we can elicit a direct preference, telling us whether people preferred results from A or from B. This direct preference means that a paired experiment can reach its conclusion much more quickly than an A/B experiment. Another advantage of combining A and B is that it avoids the downside if one list is much worse than another. For example, if B fails for some query then nobody is stuck with just B, they still see some of A.

Our WSDM-2013 paper [4] proposes a new way of performing unbiased and informative paired evaluations. This is where things get a little more technical. When someone sets up a paired comparison experiment using our approach, we allow them to specify two things. One is what combinations of A and B are allowable. For example, if A and B return disjoint top-10 lists then we have 20 unique results, one approach would be to allow any of the 20 results to appear anywhere in the combined list. However, being too free with this is essentially shuffling the results, which is bad for people in the experiment. We solve this by restricting the allowable combinations. In the paper we stick with combinations such that any prefix of the combined list is made up of prefixes from A and B.

The other thing the experimenter can define is some reward function, which is applied when someone selects a result from the combined list. The general principle is to identify where the selected result appears in A and B, then reward the system that had it closer to the top, giving a bigger reward if the result was moved further and closer to the top. For example, if the selected result is at rank 4 in A and rank 2 in B, perhaps this gives 2 points to B, rewarding based on the difference in rank.

Based on input from the experimenter, we now know the possible ways of combining A and B, and we also know how to reward each system based on what results are selected. Then the core of our approach is a method for deciding which combinations to show, to get an unbiased and informative experiment. The main bias that we’re concerned with is “position bias”: Results near the top of the combined list are more likely to be selected by users. In the context of our experiment, if we systematically put results from B above those of A then this extra prominence means B is more likely to win. The solution is to sometimes show lists biased towards A and sometimes lists biased towards B. More specifically, given the allowable combined lists and reward function, we solve for a probability distribution over lists that is unbiased with respect to a user model that generates a top-heavy click pattern. Since there are usually multiple solutions, we also have a preference for solutions that are informative, which means that the combined list has a mixture of results that reward A and B, rather than just one or the other.

We can refer you to the paper for the details, but the overall outcome is that we can generate an optimal paired experiment that brings together a unique combination of results and reward functions. As a Bing user, you have probably taken part in both A/B and paired evaluations many times. Now you know that it is thanks to you that we can keep Bing ahead of the competition!

- Dr. Nick Craswell and Dr. Filip Radlinski, Applied Research, Bing R&D

[1] M. Sanderson (2012). Test Collection Based Evaluation of Information Retrieval Systems. Vol. 4. No. 4. Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval

[2] S.T. Dumais, R. Jeffries, D. Russell, D. Tang, and J. Teevan (2011). Design of large scale log analysis studies. In Proceedings of CHI 2011 (Course)

[3] F. Radlinski and N. Craswell (2013). Optimized interleaving for online retrieval evaluation. Optimized interleaving for online retrieval evaluation. In Proceedings of WSDM 2013

[4] R. Kohavi, A. Deng, B. Frasca, R. Longbotham, T. Walker and Y. Xu (2012). Trustworthy online controlled experiments: five puzzling outcomes explained. In Proceedings of KDD 2012

Bing Maps Publishes Equivalent of 100,000 DVD’s of Bird’s Eye Imagery

Bing Maps Blog — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:51:00 GMT

Today, we are excited to announce a number of updates to Bing Maps, including the largest shipment of Bird’s Eye imagery yet, nearly 270 terabytes of data or the equivalent of 100,000 DVD’s, along with expanded venue maps and our new “Report a problem” feature.

Bird's Eye
Imagery captured at a 45 degree angle, giving depth and three-dimensionality to ortho photography

To date Bing has published a total of 1,452,958 sq km, or half a petabyte of data, of Bird's Eye scenes from around the world. Look for yellow in the below World map to see our new Bird’s Eye coverage from this release:

Click the links below, and view more imagery on Bing Maps!

Tampere, Finland

W8 Link | Bing Maps Link

Rome, Italy

W8 Link | Bing Maps Link

Kaanapali, Hawaii

W8 Link | Bing Maps Link

Stavanger, Norway

W8 Link | Bing Maps Link

Milan, Italy W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link	Ringerike, Norway W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link

Toledo, Ohio W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link	Kuopio, Finland W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link

Additional Highlights

Venue Maps
Provides detailed maps illustrating a point of interest

Ever need to find your seats at a football game? Lost in the Mall of America? With more than 4,700 Venue Maps in more than 59 countries on Bing Maps, you can navigate your way around malls, airports, amusement parks and more using your Windows phone, tablet, or PC!

Mall of America, St. Paul, Minnesota

W8 Link | Bing Maps Link

While on Bing Maps and within a zoom level of 1000 feet, purple and green polygons will appear to outline particular points of interest for a given venue. Green shading indicates restaurants, while stores appear purple.

When you click on any outlined polygon, a directory will appear with a full list of points of interest and offer options to visually explore additional floors of the venue. Try it with the additional links below:

Boston, Massachusetts W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link	Singapore Zoo, Singapore W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link

Las Vegas, Nevada W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link	King's College, London W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link

If you see an outlined feature that is not correct, please tell us about it. All you have to do is click on the point of interest in question and click “Report a problem”.

Follow the steps below for a walk-through at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia.

Step 1: Click on US Post Office, then click "Report a problem"
W8 Link | Bing Maps Link

Step 2: Select an option and click "Continue"

Step 3: Select option or type in comment and hit "Submit"

- The Bing Maps Team

Top Father’s Day Searches on Bing

Bing Search Blog — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:22:09 GMT

From brunches and barbeques to fishing poles to golf clubs, Father’s Day topics are trending up on Bing this week. When it comes to celebrating dear old dad, 57 percent of respondents in a recent Bing survey said they switch up their Father’s Day celebration every year - from attending a different sporting event to seeing a new summer blockbuster - while 44 percent of people say they plan to celebrate Father’s Day by treating Dad to a meal on the town. Check out our roundup of dad-related searches that are popular on Bing this week.

When it comes to popular Father’s Day gifts, there’s a new reigning champion- shoes! Shoes beat out the old standby, ties, with 37 percent of Father’s Day gift searches.

1. Men’s shoes

2. Ties

3. Golf Clubs

4. Cufflinks

5. Fishing Gear

With six children, a successful marriage, and an upcoming summer block buster, Brad Pitt is the most searched celebrity father on Bing. In fact, 1 in 3 survey respondents say Brad Pitt deserves to win celebrity “Father of the Year.”

1. Brad Pitt

2. Channing Tatum

3. Kanye West

4. Prince William

5. Ben Affleck

When it comes to movies that celebrate the special bond between father and child, Finding Nemo is the most searched flick to watch with dad this Father's Day.

1. Finding Nemo

2. The Lion King

3. Big Daddy

4. Daddy Day Care

5. Father of the Bride

- The Bing Team

More Features Arrive on Bing Desktop

Bing Search Blog — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:37:00 GMT

Bing Desktopbrings together the beauty of Bing’s daily homepage images with quick and convenient ways to search from your desktop. Over 10 million people have installed Bing Desktop worldwide, and based on your feedback, we’re constantly looking for ways to make the experience more useful and convenient.

Today we are releasing a new version of Bing Desktop* that includes:

· Inline Search:Now you can search directly from a webpage, word document or PDF file simply by highlighting the word or phrase and clicking the Bing icon.

· Faster Ways to Explore via Bing Desktop Apps:We are announcing a new weather app and have overhauled the news and Facebook apps from the ground up with a new look that makes it easier to stay up to date at a glance.

Searching Just Got Easier: Ever been reading an article and wanted to get more information about a topic or phrase? We know how lots of people deal with this: copy the text, launch a browser and paste the words into the search box. With Inline Search, now all you have to do is highlight what you want to search, hit the Bing icon and you will see a preview of search results in a convenient window without ever leaving what you were doing. To turn on inline search go to Settings à General à Select Inline Search

Real-Time Weather Snapshot:Should you pack an umbrella? With the updates to Bing Desktop, you can answer that question with a simple click. We have added real-time weather customized to where you live.

News at a Glance:Interested in world news and not crazy about entertainment stories? Or vice versa? With the updates to the news app, you can stay up to date on news across categories with a glance. We’ve added a new cascading layout that lets you see images and text summaries so you can keep up on the news you’re interested in. We’ve also added a visual collection of the top trending items on the Web so you can keep your finger on what’s happening in a gorgeous waterfall layout.

Facebook Notifications: To help you keep tabs on what’s happening with your Facebook friends, you will now see a notification appear whenever there is an update for you to check out.

If you already have Bing Desktop you should receive your update in the next few days, if not, you can download the latest version here.

- The Bing Desktop Team

*Available for Windows XP and higher. The inline search feature works with the following applications: Microsoft Word 2007, 2010 and 2013, Outlook 2013, Notepad, Wordpad, Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, 8, 9 ,10, latest version of Firefox, Chrome and 360 Browsers and Adobe Reader 11.

Exciting New Chapter in Bing’s Collaboration with Apple

Bing Search Blog — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:32:00 GMT

Today at WWDC Apple announced iOS 7, which brings Bing web search integration to Siri, Apple's breakthrough personal assistant, for the first time.

Starting this fall with iOS 7, Bing will power Siri's new integrated web search. When users ask Siri a question either the specific answer or web search links will now be delivered automatically so users can find information even faster.

Bing was designed from the outset to be a great place for web search helping customers quickly find what they are looking for and get more out of search. We are thrilled that all the great results people have come to know and love on Bing.comwill now be available to Siri users on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

- Derrick Connell, Corporate Vice President, Bing

More Features Arrive on Bing Desktop

Bing Search Blog — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:06:49 GMT

Today we are releasing a new version of Bing Desktop* that includes:

· Inline Search: Now you can search directly from a webpage, word document or PDF file simply by highlighting the word or phrase and clicking the Bing icon[1].

News at a Glance and Trending Topics:Interested in world news and not crazy about entertainment stories? Or vice versa? With the updates to the news app, you can stay up to date on news across categories with a glance. We’ve added a new cascading layout that lets you see images and text summaries so you can keep up on the news you’re interested in. We’ve also added a visual collection of the top trending items on the Web so you can keep your finger on what’s happening in a gorgeous waterfall layout.

Facebook Notifications: To help you keep tabs on what’s happening with your Facebook friends, you will now see a notification appear whenever there is an update for you to check out.

If you already have Bing Desktop you should receive your update in the next few days, if not, you can download the latest version here.

- The Bing Desktop Team

Moore Tornado App with High-Res Before/After Imagery

Bing Maps Blog — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:24:00 GMT

Our hearts go out to all the people affected by the tornadoes that recently struck the Midwest. We ask everyone to please consider supporting the disaster response and relief efforts. Here are a couple of ways you can donate:

It’s really sobering to look at how destructive an EF-5 tornado can be, and adds perspective to the impact a disaster like this has on a city and its residents.

As such, we’ve developed the Moore Tornado Map App that allows people to toggle between high-resolution aerial imagery of Moore, Oklahoma before and after the May 20^thstorm. All disasters are tragic, no matter the size – we chose to focus on this one because of its magnitude and our possession of relevant imagery.

The striking imagery of the town was captured by satellite 48 hours after the event at 50cm resolution. This type of imagery can be used to help authorities assess damage and plan for rebuilding the town of Moore.

Below is just an example of what the powerful storm left behind:

Moore, Oklahoma -Before-

Moore, Oklahoma -After-

Again, please consider supporting the disaster response and relief efforts through one of the below channels:

- The Bing Maps Team

A Window to the World, Bing Translator App for Windows Now Available

Bing Search Blog — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:56:59 GMT

The Bing Translator app for Windows is available for download today. Designed from the ground up for Windows devices, the app places powerful translation technology at your fingertips by instantly translating content in more than 40 languages, at home, work or on-the-go. Whether utilizing your PC’s camera to deliver “augmented reality” translation, typing in a quick sentence or two, working offline when you are not connected or harnessing unique features of Windows to translate content from many other Windows apps, Bing Translator is a must have application for all your Windows devices.

You can now download the free app from the Windows store here. Check out the app in action in the following video:

<a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&amp;vid=a2c58116-bf98-4b1f-9225-da56e52607fd&amp;from=shareembed-syndication&amp;src=v5:embed:syndication:" target="_new" title="A Window to the World, Bing Translator App for Windows Now Available" data-mce-href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&amp;vid=a2c58116-bf98-4b1f-9225-da56e52607fd&amp;from=shareembed-syndication&amp;src=v5:embed:syndication:">Video: A Window to the World, Bing Translator App for Windows Now Available</a>

The Bing Translator app is based on years of Microsoft Research’s investments in advancing machine learning – a way to find patterns that humans can’t see, helping people interpret the words and worlds around them.

Translating content whether browsed, typed or scanned is nearly instantaneous. Just point your device’s camera at printed text and watch as the translation is automatically overlaid over the video stream - creating subtitles for everyday life. You can also type to translate with your keyboard and hear translations spoken with a native speaker's accent.

The Translator app is the perfect companion when traveling. The app can help overcome language barriers, even when there’s no internet connection. Save on expensive data plans when traveling with offline language packs for select languages so you can travel with confidence, even in the most remote locations. More language packs coming soon.

The Share Charm lets you quickly translate highlighted text in any Windows 8 app, with Snap View you can multi-task while browsing, chatting or more by snapping Bing Translator to the right or left of your screen. With this unique feature, powerful translation technology is just a swipe away in Windows 8 no matter where you are – at your desk or on the go.

For more about the app, check out the Translator for Windowsproduct page and check back for future developments and updates from Translator and Microsoft.

We hope that this app becomes your window to the world, no matter where you are.

- Vikram Dendi, Director of Product Management, Microsoft/Bing Translator

The Chicken Has Landed

Duane Forrester — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 22:10:06 GMT

Last week we talked about the coming of the Chicken. I found it amusing that I started, almost immediately, to get tweets from folks asking if this was an algo update that was pending.

Was Chicken maybe a code name for a big update we were planning ahead of SMX Advanced? Would more animals follow? Perhaps Chicken was organic, and Cow might affect Image Search.

Fact is, it’s not.

This Chicken cometh bearing a gift.

The reality is much simpler and in keeping with something we’ve been working to stay focused on here at Bing Webmaster Tools for the last couple of years…helping businesses.

You’ve seen it through the deep toolset we released one year ago this week (with SEO reporting and now, competitive link analysis tools built in). You’ve seen it in the Webmaster Guidelines we published earlier this year. You've seen it in the Help and How-To documentation we've shared. You’ve seen it in the webinars we’ve produced over the last 12 months (and there were about 12 we’ve been involved with over that time), you've seen it in the Sitemap Plugin we released for IIS and Apache servers, and you’ll see more of it as we move forward and work on sharing more information to help businesses plan and execute sound strategies.

Below you will find a video designed to help people understand some common areas they can take action in to improve their product, ranking and traffic.

The blog used for the video belongs to a coworker here at Bing, and is a hobby website her and her husband have so close friends can stay abreast of what’s up with their chickens. Yup, they have chickens in Seattle (though they remain Chickless in Seattle), and yes, I scored some fresh eggs… (and if you’ve never tried fresh eggs, you need to – life altering!) …but that’s beside the point. Nothing fancy, but a starting point for their aspirations of dominating the world of Chicken News, maybe...

The point behind the video is to help websites, new and old, through a hands-on review of a live site. Their goal was to better understand what they could do to drive traffic, and now they, and you, know. It’s true we don’t cover everything in the video – there was simply not enough time. But, it’s a starting point for many folks, and hopefully, you’ll find a couple of funny moments in there, too… I mean, when was the last time YOU brought a chicken to the office?

We looked at some common issues many websites have around robots.txt files and sitemap.xmls. We talked about content and explored new ideas for content creation, and built off existing ideas already in place.

There were actually two chickens involved here: Business Chicken, who you see in the video, and Party Chicken, who was lounging in the green room (a crate with popcorn & bourbon handy – OK, popcorn yes, bourbon, no…) in case Business Chicken decided not to play ball. She was awesome, though, I have to say. A real pro.

We had a hoot and a half filming this (or maybe it was a cluck and a half…). Unlikely we’ll ever bring in a Honey Badger for filming though, so you can skip those requests right now.

…and I guess Security will finally have proof that we had chickens in the building… ;)

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;vid=2cdc7123-289b-4395-8836-49249a18a58b&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;from=shareembed-syndication&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;src=v5:embed:syndication:" target="_new" title="Bing Webmaster Tools and Business Chicken" data-mce-href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;vid=2cdc7123-289b-4395-8836-49249a18a58b&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;from=shareembed-syndication&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;src=v5:embed:syndication:"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Video: Bing Webmaster Tools and Business Chicken&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Duane Forrester
Sr. Product Manager
Bing Webmaster Tools

Help Your Britain - KartForce

UKteam — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 17:31:40 GMT

Continuing with our Help Your Britain campaign, today marks the 12th user-nominated charity to be showcased on Bing.

There are more than 187,000 registered charities across Great Britain with a story to be told, many of whom will never be heard due to the lack of resources at their disposal. We’re shining the spotlight on these unsung British heroes as part of our long-term campaign, enabling you, the British public, to nominate the charities you would like to see via www.bing.com/HelpYourBritain.

Today is the turn of…

KartForce was launched in August 2010 by Dave Player, who served five years in the Royal Engineers, and who is now a wheelchair user as a result of a spinal injury. Kartforce’s aim is to make people think about all the things they CAN DO instead of all the things they can’t!

Located in Berkshire, KartForce takes standard racing karts and converts them, enabling ex-soldiers with a variety of ailments to try karting and experience all of the thrills and spills the motorsport offers. In addition, KartForce provides a mentoring service to injured troops to assist in their rehabilitation and recovery. KartForce’s aim is to build self-esteem by teaching visitors to race, to win and be competitive, instead of feeling held back by the negative experiences they have been through.

A few words from Dave:

“It’s the most fun I’ve had since being injured,” said a smiling Luke when he came off the track after his first session of karting with hand controls.

It was a wet and cold day, but the two new lads, Ryan and Luke, still came out to try karting for the first time. Ryan and Luke are both 21 and both are above knee double amputees with hand injuries (one lad has no hip bone on one side). They were school mates, joined the Army together, ended up in the same unit and were injured a few days apart. Both are now going through rehab together.

On the same day, Nicky joined for his second session. He was very impressive in the wet, clocking the fastest lap of the session – which he won’t let his mate, the super-fast Mark forget. Mark, who is 22 and also a double amputee, has been racing with KartForce for a year and coaches the rookies. He led the "train" around the track showing the new lads how it’s done.

A few sessions in and Ryan, Luke and Nicky were battling it out with Mark, lap after lap - it was great to watch. Just a few more sessions and these rookies will be entering their first race. Between these four lads there's only one leg - but definitely no lack of British competitiveness.

It’s great welcoming new people to KartForce and showing them that they can compete on a level playing field with non-injured drivers. The massive smiles on their faces and their encouraging feedback is what KartForce is all about.

To read more about these speedy daredevils or for more information on how you can support KartForce visit www.kartforce.org.

If you would like to see your charity of choice take over the Bing homepage, you can nominate them here: www.bing.com/HelpYourBritain. Don’t forget to get involved with the conversation on Facebook and Twitter #HelpYourBritain

Tweet to Win a Ticket to Bing’s “Bing It On Father’s Day Challenge” Event in NYC Hosted by LL COOL J

Bing Search Blog — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:18:40 GMT

Father’s day is nearly here and to celebrate all of the fathers in our lives, Bing is partnering with LL COOL J to host The Bing It On Father’s Day Challenge on June 11^th at The Standard hotel in New York City. To enter to win a ticket for you and a friend to attend this exclusive event, follow @Bing on Twitter and then retweet this tweet. We will randomly select one lucky winner on Friday, June 7. Official rules here.

Good luck!

- The Bing Team

Behind the scenes at KartForce

UKteam — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:15:43 GMT

&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/kartforce/2t68lqw7" target="_new" title="KartForce" data-mce-href="http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/kartforce/2t68lqw7"&amp;amp;gt; KartForce&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;

“BING IT ON FOR SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC TICKETS” SWEEPSTAKES OFFICIAL RULES

Bing Search Blog — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 20:31:34 GMT

“BING IT ON FOR SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC TICKETS” SWEEPSTAKES OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.

COMMON TERMS USED IN THESE RULES:

These are the official rules that govern how the Microsoft “Bing It On for Seattle Sounders FC Tickets" Sweepstakes will operate. This promotion will be simply referred to as the “Sweepstakes” throughout the rest of these rules.

In these rules, “we,” “our,” and “us” refer to Microsoft Corporation, the sponsor of the Sweepstakes. “You” refers to an eligible Sweepstakes entrant.

WHAT ARE THE START AND END DATES?

This Sweepstakes starts at 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time (“PT”) on Thursday, June 6, 2013, and ends at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, October 25, 2013 (“Entry Period”). The Entry Period consists of 12 separate Prize Periods described in the Entry chart below. Entries must be received within the Entry Period to be eligible for the drawing.

CAN I ENTER?

You are eligible to enter this Sweepstakes if you meet the following requirements at the time of entry:

You are a legal resident of the 50 United States (+D.C.) 18 years of age or older; and
You have NOTwon a Bing sweepstakes or contest for the previous six (6) months
You are NOT an employee of Microsoft Corporation or an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary; and
You are NOT involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Sweepstakes; and
You are NOT an immediate family (parent, sibling, spouse, child) or household member of a Microsoft employee, an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary, or a person involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Sweepstakes.

This Sweepstakes is void outside of the geographic area described above and wherever else prohibited by law. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply.

HOW DO I ENTER?

To enter any Prize Period, you must do all of the following:

Sign in to your Twitter account. If you do not have an account, visit www.twitter.com to create one. Twitter accounts are free. All terms and conditions of Twitter.com apply.
Once logged into your Twitter account, follow the links and instructions to become a follower of @Bing at http://twitter.com/bing.
On the date listed in the Entry Chart below, a Sweepstakes message will be posted from the @bing handle, prompting you to retweet. You have until the deadline to retweet this message to be eligible.
You must remain a follower until at the winner selection / notification date listed in the Entry Chart below to be contacted if you are selected as a potential winner.

By retweeting the Sweepstakes message, you will automatically receive one entry into the Sweepstakes. Limit of one entry per entrant and Twitter ID.

ENTRY CHART

Prize Period	Sweepstakes message posted at 9 am PT and Entry must be received by 5:00 pm PT on:	2 tickets to a Sounders FC match at Safeco Field in Seattle, WA on:
1	Thursday June 6th	Saturday, June 8^th
2	Monday July 1st	Wednesday, July 3^rd
3	Thursday July 18th	Saturday, July 20th
4	Friday July 26th	Sunday, July 28th
5	Thursday August 1st	Saturday, August 3^rd
6	Friday August 23rd	Sunday, August 25^th
7	Monday September 2nd	Wednesday, September 4
8	Thursday September 5th	Saturday, September 7^th
9	Wednesday September 11	Friday, September 13^th
10	Friday September 27	Sunday, September 29^th
11	Monday October 7th	Wednesday, October 9^th
12	Friday October 25th	Sunday, October 27th

We are not responsible for entries that we do not receive for any reason, or for entries that we receive but are not decipherable for any reason.

We will automatically disqualify:

Any incomplete or illegible entry; and
Any entries that we receive from you that are in excess of the entry limit described above.
Any entry that contains profanity and/or is deemed defamatory.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Twitter. We will contact you only if you are the winner (pending verification of eligibility).

WINNER SELECTION AND PRIZES

One winner will be selected at random from among all eligible entries received immediately following the close of each Prize Period. Each winner will receive:

(2) Club Level Tickets (one pair) to a Seattle Sounders FC match at Safeco Field in Seattle, WA. Approximate retail value per pair $82.00

Prize consists of event access only; winner is solely responsible for travel to and from the event. If you are a potential winner, we will notify you by Direct Message on Twitter to the account provided at time of entry within one hour following the random drawing. If the notification that we send is returned as undeliverable, or you are otherwise unreachable for any reason within twenty-four (24) hours of the date and time notified, we may award the prize to an alternate, randomly selected winner, time allowing. If necessary, only three (3) alternate drawings will be held after which the applicable prize will remain un-awarded. Winner will be required to provide an active email address in order to be contacted by Microsoft for eligibility verification and prize award fulfillment. We will only award one (1) prize per person during the Entry Period. If the event is cancelled for any reason, Microsoft has no further obligation to the winner other than to provide tickets to an alternate match.

If there is a dispute as to who is the potential winner, we will consider the potential winner to be the authorized account holder of the Twitter ID account used to enter the Sweepstakes. If you are a potential winner, we may require you (your parent / legal guardian if you have not reached the age of majority in your state of residence) to sign an Affidavit of Eligibility, Liability/Publicity Release and a W-9 tax form within five (5) days of notification. If you do not complete the required forms as instructed and/or return the required forms within the time period listed on the winner notification message, we may disqualify you and select an alternate, randomly selected winner.

If you are confirmed as a winner of this Sweepstakes:

You may not exchange your prize for cash or any other merchandise or services. However, if for any reason an advertised prize is unavailable, we reserve the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value; and

You may not designate someone else as the winner. If you are unable or unwilling to accept your prize, we will award it to an alternate potential winner; and

If you accept a prize, you will be solely responsible for all applicable taxes related to accepting the prize; and

Unless otherwise noted, all prizes are subject to their manufacturer’s warranty and / or terms and conditions.

WHAT ARE YOUR ODDS OF WINNING?

Your odds of winning this Sweepstakes depend on the number of eligible entries we receive.

WHAT OTHER CONDITIONS ARE YOU AGREEING TO BY ENTERING THIS SWEEPSTAKES?

By entering this Sweepstakes you agree:

To abide by these Official Rules; and
To release and hold harmless Microsoft, Fun., and their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees and agents from any and all liability or any injury, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with this Sweepstakes or any prize won; and
That Microsoft’s decisions will be final and binding on all matters related to this Sweepstakes; and
That by accepting a prize, Microsoft may use of your proper name and state of residence online and in print, or in any other media, in connection with this Sweepstakes, without payment or compensation to you, except where prohibited by law.

WHAT LAWS GOVERN THE WAY THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS EXECUTED AND ADMINISTRATED?

This Sweepstakes will be governed by the laws of the State of Washington, and you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the courts of the State of Washington for any disputes arising out of this Sweepstakes.

WHAT IF SOMETHING UNEXPECTED HAPPENS AND THE SWEEPSTAKES CAN’T RUN AS PLANNED?

If cheating, a virus, bug, catastrophic event, or any other unforeseen or unexpected event that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled, (also referred to as force majeure) affects the fairness and / or integrity of this Sweepstakes, we reserve the right to cancel, change or suspend this Sweepstakes. This right is reserved whether the event is due to human or technical error. If a solution cannot be found to restore the integrity of the Sweepstakes, we reserve the right to randomly select a winner from among all eligible entries received before we had to cancel, change or suspend the Sweepstakes.

If you attempt to compromise the integrity or the legitimate operation of this Sweepstakes by hacking or by cheating or committing fraud in ANY way, we may seek damages from you to the fullest extent permitted by law. Further, we may ban you from participating in any of our future Sweepstakes, so please play fairly.

HOW CAN YOU FIND OUT WHO WON?

For a list of winners, send an email by November 15, 2013, with the subject line Bing Sounders winners to nimont@microsoft.com.

WHO IS SPONSORING THIS SWEEPSTAKES?

Microsoft Corporation

One Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA 98052

BING FATHER’S DAY GIVEAWAY SWEEPSTAKES

Bing Search Blog — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 20:30:00 GMT

BING FATHER’S DAY GIVEAWAY SWEEPSTAKES

OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.

COMMON TERMS USED IN THESE RULES:

These are the official rules that govern how the “ Father’s Day Giveaway” Sweepstakes will operate. This promotion will be simply referred to as the “Sweepstakes” throughout the rest of these rules.

In these rules, “we,” “our,” and “us” refer to Microsoft Corporation, the sponsor of the Sweepstakes. “You” refers to an eligible Sweepstakes entrant.

WHAT ARE THE START AND END DATES?

This Sweepstakes starts at 9:00 am Pacific Time (“PT”) on Wednesday June 5th, 2013, and ends at 10:00 am Pacific Time on Friday, June 7^th(“Entry Period”). Entries must be received within the Entry Period to be eligible for the drawing.

CAN I ENTER?

You are eligible to enter this Sweepstakes if you meet the following requirements at the time of entry:

You area legal resident of New York, NY and you are 21 years of age or older
You have NOTwon a Bing sweepstakes or contest for the previous six (6) months prior to March 18, 2013.
You are NOT an employee of Microsoft Corporation or an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary; and
You are NOT involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Sweepstakes; and
You are NOT an immediate family (parent, sibling, spouse, and child) or household member of a Microsoft employee, an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary, or a person involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Sweepstakes.

This Sweepstakes is void outside of the geographic area described above and wherever else prohibited by law. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply.

HOW DO I ENTER?

To enter, you must do all of the following:

Sign in to your Twitter account. If you do not have an account, visit www.twitter.com to create one. Twitter accounts are free. All terms and conditions of Twitter.com apply.
Once logged into your Twitter account, follow the links and instructions to become a follower of @Bing at http://twitter.com/bing.
At the beginning of the Entry Period, a message will be tweeted from the @Bing handle and you be prompted to retweet the message

By retweeting the Sweepstakes message, you will automatically receive one (1) entry into the Sweepstakes. You must remain a follower until at least June 9^th2013 in order to be contacted if you are selected as a potential winner.

Limit of one (1) entry per entrant and Twitter ID.

We are not responsible for entries that we do not receive for any reason, or for entries that we receive but are not decipherable for any reason.

We will automatically disqualify:

Any incomplete or illegible entry; and
Any entries that we receive from you that are in excess of the entry limit described above.
Any entry that contains profanity and/or is deemed defamatory.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Twitter. We will contact you only if you are the winner (pending verification of eligibility).

WINNER SELECTION AND PRIZES

On June 7^that 10:05 am, we will randomly select one winner from among all eligible entries received to win the following:

Grand Prize:

1.) Admission for winner and a guest (both must be 21+) to a private Bing Father’s Day event with a L.L. Cool J at The Standard, High Line in New York City on June 11^th2013. Approximate Retail Value, ARV, $200

Winner and guest are solely responsible for any and all travel and other expenses not stated above. If you are a potential winner, we will notify you by Direct Message on Twitter to the account provided at time of entry within 1hour following the random drawing. Winner must respond within 5 hours of notification to claim prize. If the notification that we send is returned as undeliverable, or you are otherwise unreachable for any reason, we may award the prize to an alternate, randomly selected winner, time allowing. If necessary, only three (3) alternate drawings will be held after which the applicable prize will remain un-awarded. If a winner is determined after March 20, 2013, the winner will only have the choice of prize option 2. Winner will be required to provide an active email address in order to be contacted by Microsoft for eligibility verification and prize award fulfillment. We will only award one (1) prize. If the event is cancelled for any reason, Microsoft has no further obligation to the winner other than to provide the advertised prize minus the opportunity to attend the event.

If there is a dispute as to who is the potential winner, we will consider the potential winner to be the authorized account holder of the Twitter ID account used to enter the Sweepstakes. If you are a potential winner, we may require you to sign an Affidavit of Eligibility, Liability/Publicity Release and a W-9 tax form within five (5) days of notification. If you do not complete the required forms as instructed and/or return the required forms within the time period listed on the winner notification message, we may disqualify you and select an alternate, randomly selected winner.

If you are confirmed as a winner of this Sweepstakes:

You may not exchange your prize for cash or any other merchandise or services. However, if for any reason an advertised prize is unavailable, we reserve the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value; and

You may not designate someone else as the winner. If you are unable or unwilling to accept your prize, we will award it to an alternate potential winner; and

If you accept a prize, you will be solely responsible for all applicable taxes related to accepting the prize; and

Unless otherwise noted, all prizes are subject to their manufacturer’s warranty and / or terms and conditions.

WHAT ARE YOUR ODDS OF WINNING?

Your odds of winning this Sweepstakes depend on the number of eligible entries we receive.

WHAT OTHER CONDITIONS ARE YOU AGREEING TO BY ENTERING THIS SWEEPSTAKES?

By entering this Sweepstakes you agree:

To abide by these Official Rules; and
To release and hold harmless Microsoft, Fun., and their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees and agents from any and all liability or any injury, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with this Sweepstakes or any prize won; and
That Microsoft’s decisions will be final and binding on all matters related to this Sweepstakes; and
That by accepting a prize, Microsoft may use of your proper name and state of residence online and in print, or in any other media, in connection with this Sweepstakes, without payment or compensation to you, except where prohibited by law.

WHAT LAWS GOVERN THE WAY THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS EXECUTED AND ADMINISTRATED?

WHAT IF SOMETHING UNEXPECTED HAPPENS AND THE SWEEPSTAKES CAN’T RUN AS PLANNED?

HOW CAN YOU FIND OUT WHO WON?

For a list of winners, send an email by July 1, 2013, with the subject line “Father’s Day winner list” to nimont@microsoft.com.

WHO IS SPONSORING THIS SWEEPSTAKES?

Microsoft Corporation

One Microsoft Way

Redmond, WA 98052

Finding Summer Deals With Andrea Deckard from SavingsLifestyle.com

Bing Search Blog — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:41:17 GMT

Summer is upon us, and as your family prepares for some fun in the sun, Bing has partnered with shopping and savings expert Andrea Deckard from SavingsLifestyle.comto co-host this week’s #BingIt chat on how to make sure you don’t miss out on the best summer deals.

Join us on Wednesday, June 5^th from noon – 1pm PT/3pm – 4pm ET, as Andrea will discuss and share advice on snagging great dealsthis summer and on planning family activities on a budget. To participate in the chat and tweet directly with Andrea, follow @Bing, @SavingLifestyle and include the hashtag #BingIt in your tweets.

Andrea Deckard is the author of the popular money-saving website, SavingsLifestyle.com. The site’s mission is to “save money on what you need so you can spend (and save) more on what you want.” Andrea's desire to help others save more is shared through the practical savings tips, teaching couponing, finding great deals, sharing legitimate freebies, and enjoying frugal family fun!

--Bing Team

The Chicken Cometh

Duane Forrester — Fri, 31 May 2013 20:11:00 GMT

From ice flows to jungles, our industry has embraced wildlife as a way to communicate change. Who’d have expected creatures we thought so endearing would wreak havoc and turn worlds upside down. Between penguins and pandas and honey badgers, the changes have been many.

While some changes have been viewed as negative, others were seen as positive. Clearly, one cannot judge the change by its animal spirit alone.

Could you have guessed that the kick-a$$ Honey Badger would bring you the biggest step forward in Webmaster Tools since…webmaster tools started?

Could you have predicted that a cuddly panda was capable of decimating businesses overnight?

But why the penguin? Cute and inoffensive, we’ve seen more butch penguin images than have ever existed in the history of mankind since it was co-opted into the role as a shield!

Alas, all in the name of marketing. Honey Badgers take no crap. Penguins and Pandas are cute and cuddly; all the better to send the message “Don’t fear us…” while… Well, you know.

And if you look well back in history, you’d see that before there were animals frolicking in our midst, we were dancing to a lone drummer’s beat. Those were trying times indeed, with frequency set at almost a monthly cadence; with many businesses fretting over what the next shift would bring.

For the most part, however, change is good. With every loss, there is a win. Behind almost every change is a need. Spammers must be countered, quality enhanced, new features added and useful tools brought forward.

If you scan history, it's unlikely you'll find any meaningful reference to man putting pandas, penguins or honey badgers to work in any capacity that aided our efforts. I mean, no one ever harnessed up a panda to plow a field, did they? Ever set a penguin loose to turn a grist mill? And you can flat out forget about taming a honey badger! (NSFW language in the video)

Which brings us to the fowl-du-jour. The Chicken. That helpful critter flapping around the yard, leaving behind little orbs of deliciousness. Very helpful the chicken.

At this point, the only real question to focus on, is what will the Chicken bring forth?

Duane Forrester
Sr. Product Manager
Bing Webmaster Tools

Milan, Italy W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link	Ringerike, Norway W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link

Toledo, Ohio W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link	Kuopio, Finland W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link

Boston, Massachusetts W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link	Singapore Zoo, Singapore W8 Link \| Bing Maps Link

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