Yesterday Microsoft announced an interesting element of their Bing search revamp, a partnership with Klout as an influence modifier for the product. With this latest modification, social partnering deals, and the recent “sidebar” addition, is Microsoft capitalizing on recent Google search and social woes? You betcha, and here’s why.
Back when Microsoft purchased the natural language search engine Powerset, I would not have given ten cents for the software giant’s chances of overtaking Google in search. The so called “search engine wars” of 2006 thru 2008 saw a host of would be search competitors try every relevant thing from artificial intelligence (AI) to people powered search, and far beyond. In a nutshell, even the massive PR machinery of Waggener Estrom, fueled by $100 million in campaigning dollars, did not seem to make much of a dent in Google’s search armor. Fast forward to now.
