Bing tries to get its social on, again
The search engine adds social media shortcuts to its people search results.
Bing is drumming up some interest for its Snapshot feature by adding social media shortcuts into search results.
When you search for people in Bing it brings up their Wikipedia entry -- or, if they don't have an entry, their LinkedIn profile -- in a Snapshot box alongside its results. The box will also have shortcut buttons to the person's various social media accounts.
The Snapshot box is powered by Bing's Satori technology, which sounds similar to Google's Knowledge Graph.
In addition to professionals on LinkedIn and famous people, the Snapshot box will also pop up for searches for places.
"Since its introduction in June, we have expanded Satori to include a significantly larger number of entities from more domains with a deeper level of understanding about them," Richard Qian, the lead on Bing's search index team, wrote in a blog post. "They include people, places, and things which are among the most common searches on Bing. So, whether you're searching for answers about a celebrity, co-worker, animal, geographic location, or man-made structure, Bing helps you understand the world around you by providing at-a-glance answers about the people, places, and things you care about."
Bing has been very vocal about its efforts in social media-related search. The search engine has partnered with Facebook to power the social media site's Web search and integrated Facebook profiles into its search results.