BING is Microsoft’s reboot of its Live Search, a perennial third in the search engine races. Last June Microsoft revamped it as a “decision engine” with a heavy focus, initially at least, on purchase research. The company launched a $100 million ad campaign to build awareness and entice users to try something other than Google. Here’s what you need to know:
Bing’s campaigns this fall will emphasize ease of use for shopping and finding travel deals and will play up Bing Cashback, a new version of an old Microsoft ploy that deposits rebates into the accounts of registered users when they shop with certain retailers. Right now, for example, HP Direct is offering 5% cash back to Bing users, while Overstock.com hands back 2% to 10%. Deposits can be used online or cashed in 60 days after purchase.
Bing results pages have begun including tweets from several thousand “prolific and prominent” Twitter users, from celebs like Al Gore and Ryan Seacrest to business commentators like Kara Swisher. You’ll have to search for the famous tweeter by name, but it’s a more seamless integration of Twitter traffic than happens yet on Google or Yahoo.
And at press time, Yahoo has agreed to a 10-year deal that substitutes Bing for its own search platform on its pages. That should give Bing a 30% share of search traffic.
E-BOOKS are getting a new look from both makers and publishers. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos won’t reveal how many Kindle 2 units the company has sold, but says it will be a “meaningful contribution” to revenue in a few years. Here’s chapter and verse now:
Barnes & Noble is back in the e-book business, selling 700,000 digital titles for download to iPhones, Blackberrys and other devices. Users have to download the B&N e-reader, but they get six classic titles for free; subsequent books cost $9.99 per download. The chain will also be the exclusive e-book supplier to the anticipated reader device from Plastic Logic, due in 2010.
U.S. patents from December 2007 suggest that Amazon has plans to insert ads into e-books as a way to lower costs. The patents outline a way to insert ads between chapters or every 10 pages into Web downloaded books. Ads could relate to the book context or could be tailored to fit the Amazon profile of the user. The patents have yet to win approval.
Kindle users who thought they owned their e-copies of “Animal Farm” and “1984” found out differently in late July when Amazon deleted those books and offered credits. Turns out the publishing company providing the texts didn’t have the digital rights. When Orwell fans protested, Bezos promised Amazon would never again zap properly purchased e-titles for rights reasons.
SMARTPHONES are getting smarter and selling well; the segment is only 13% of the global cellphone market now but will continue to grow, according to IDC forecasts. Here are the high points of the latest news:
The Palm Pre, launched June 6 on the Sprint network, has been targeting iPhone users who may have a grudge against AT&T, the sole carrier. “Your iPhone contract is up,” ads read. “Perfect timing.” The campaigns tout the Pre’s slide-out keyboard and the phone’s ability to run multiple applications at once, texting, searching the Web and listening to music simultaneously.
Apple’s got a new iPhone, the 3GS, but more importantly it’s got a new iPhone operating system that supports multimedia messaging service (MMS). Think SMS made more compelling with pictures, audio, video or rich text. Problem is, AT&T doesn’t support MMS for the iPhone — yet. The carrier says it will offer the service by the end of the summer, but hasn’t specified user charges.
African Americans are the fastest growing group of mobile Web users, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Some 48% have used a cellphone to get to the Web, compared to the national average of 32%. That compares to 12% of black Americans who surfed the Web over a cellphone in 2007.
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