Bing adds select Tweeps to search results

Robert Hallock 2 Jul, 2009 at 12:53pm ET Article published in Tech

Microsoft’s revamped Bing search engine has harnessed the power of Twitter to enhance the relevancy of the engine’s results.

The Redmond outfit has confirmed that a select number of prolific Twitter users are currently being indexed in the experiment.

“We’re not indexing all of Twitter at this time… just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start. We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets,” wrote Microsoft Search Technology Center GM Sean Suchter. “We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter’s public API to surface Tweets in people search.”

The initial roster of Tweeple is designed to appeal to a broad range of unique interest groups; provided examples include Danny Sullivan, Kara Swisher, Al Gore and Ryan Seacrest. We can infer that Microsoft hopes to interest the critical Digg regurgitator, chatty Cathy, washed up politician and squealing fangirl demographics with these selections.

Suchter also encouraged users to follow Bing on Twitter.

Comments

3 Jul 2009 ~ 2:17pm GnomeWizardd I decided to try it today, not bad at all, WTG MS
3 Jul 2009 ~ 5:08pm UPSLynx I've been using a greasemonkey script in Firefox to do this for Google results for months now. I love having instant, real-time results on what I'm searching for.
3 Jul 2009 ~ 6:22pm chrisWhite Really Lynx? What script is that?
3 Jul 2009 ~ 10:32pm NiGHTS Sidenote, but I think you may want to altar your signature Chris. IIRC spiders can scan forums and hit your e-mail with spam.

...not that you'd ever really have a problem with spam on gmail to begin with, but still.
4 Jul 2009 ~ 1:14pm UPSLynx Kapow

I love that script soooo much.

Obviously, requires that you have Greasemonkey installed
4 Jul 2009 ~ 1:53pm chrisWhite What self respecting Firefox user who knows what an extension is doesn't have Greasemonkey installed? Thanks man!
5 Jul 2009 ~ 2:32pm yagga Just curious, isn't bing basically a renamed live search?
5 Jul 2009 ~ 3:17pm Snarkasm It's got some good new features. If you haven't tried it, give it a shot. It hasn't supplanted google for me yet, but it does have some useful aspects.
5 Jul 2009 ~ 4:33pm chrisWhite I gave it a solid two weeks as my primary, much, much better then Live was, particularly with resultsâ€”well, since I last tried Live anywayâ€”and it's prettier but still not up to snuff on the results either.

Lynx, I'm loving that greasemonkey script!
23 Dec 2009 ~ 1:50pm AlexDeGruven I'll take Bing seriously when they get rid of that stupid name.
23 Dec 2009 ~ 5:16pm chrisWhite I've been using it a fair bit lately and there are things about Bing I really like, it's certainly more attractive then Google.