New Video Shows Microsoft “Assistant” Cortana In Action
Microsoft will be introducing its Siri and Google Now/Voice competitor Cortana with Windows 8.1 in April. The new “intelligent assistant” will eventually be available cross-platform, although launching on Lumia Phones. The name Cortana comes from a character in the game Halo. It was…
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New Bing Ads Editor Version Now Available
Today Bing Ads announced the latest version of Bing Ads Editor is available and ready for download. We’ve covered some up the updates already, including the improved sync results window, Bing Ads Editor Update Gives The Lowly “Sync Update” Window Real Functionality (be sure to check out the…
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For Robocop, Bing Imagines The Future Of Search In 2028
What will search look like in 2028? That’s a question that the folks at Bing were tasked with answering for the new movie, Robocop. (Well, “new” as in a remake of the 1987 original that just hit theaters this week.) In a blog post this week, the Bing search folks shared a few…
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New Bing Ads Editor Release Coming Soon, To Include Update To Campaign Conflicts Review
Along with news that a new release of Bing Ads Editor is imminent, today the Bing Ads team announced an upcoming update to the conflict resolution workflow designed to simplify the campaign conflict review process. Campaign conflicts can arise when mul…
Bing Ads Expands Mobile Sitelinks Coverage In US, Will Roll Out To EU Markets
Bing Ads announced today that it will complete roll out of sitelink extensions on mobile devices in the US in coming weeks. In a post on the Bing Ads blog, Microsoft’s Eliot Li said they currently have enabled over 60 percent of the mobile traffic on the Yahoo Bing Network (YBN) to run…
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Microsoft: We Don’t Censor Search Outside China
Bing censors search results in China in accordance with Chinese law. But does it do so in the US and elsewhere around the world for Chinese users? That disturbing proposition was raised yesterday in an article appearing in The Guardian. The article ass…
Bing Ads Updates Reporting Capabilities, Chiefly Conversion Performance Insights
Today, Bing Ads announced the roll out of several new updates to the reporting capabilities. For advertisers with conversion tracking enabled, this will likely be the most welcome change announced today. At long last, Bing Ads has introduced the full s…
Microsoft Testing “Bing Saves” Search Bookmarking Feature
Microsoft appears to be testing a new feature for Bing: Bing Saves. According to a Neowin community member who saw the beta, it’s a way to click and bookmark a search result for later retrieval from your Microsoft account. Below is a screenshot of the feature from Neowin. The utility of such…
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Microsoft’s $15 Million Check-in: Will Redmond Buy Foursquare?
Microsoft has invested $15 million in Foursquare and said it will license the former’s location data according to news released yesterday. Foursquare aspires to be “the location layer for the internet.” With real-time feedback about local data accuracy, based on user movements and…
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Who’s Tops? Bud Light Is Unseated As Number One Super Bowl Advertiser On Google And Bing
It looks like we have an upset. Bud Light appeared to be the clear front runner among Super Bowl advertisers running paid search ads on Google and Bing, It turns out the King of Beer’s less filling counterpart is merely the runner up on both search engines. Volkswagen has garnered the top…
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RKG Report: PLAs Fuel AdWords Growth, Bing Ads Spend Rises Sharply In Q4
RKG has released its Q4 2013 Digital Marketing Report, and as other reports have indicated, paid search saw solid year-over-year growth in the holiday quarter. Paid search spend among RKG’s retail-heavy client set rose 23 percent year-over-year. Overall click volume increased 19 percent, and…
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The Bing Dilemma: What To Do With The Little Search Engine That Can’t
The challenge that Microsoft faces in the online search landscape could be a business school case study: how to capture market share from a competitor whose very brand (“Google”) has become synonymous with the act of searching online. Imagine that you are the person at Microsoft…
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It’s True! Bing Ads Allows Use Of Exclamation Mark In Ad Titles
After reading the news yesterday that Bing Ads has made a change to its Editorial Guidelines prohibiting third-party sellers from appearing as an original brand, I noticed this notation in the change log from November: We have removed the restriction o…
Yahoo Tells SEC: 31% Of Our Revenue Comes From Microsoft
Yahoo has revealed in a US Securities & Exchange Commission filing that nearly one-third of its revenue last quarter — 31% — came from its search deal with Microsoft, according to a Bloomberg report. That’s far higher than the “more than 10%” figure Yahoo…
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Bing Integrates TripAdvisor Tools, Content Into Search Results
Travel site TripAdvisor made two Microsoft-related announcements today. The company announced a Windows 8.1 app. But more significantly TripAdvisor and Bing are now presenting TripAdvisor content and travel search capabilities within the Bing search en…
Bing Ads Introduces Refined Broad Match Keyword Targeting
In an effort to help advertisers attract more click volume from the Yahoo Bing Network, Bing Ads has rolled out Broad Match keyword targeting. The company says that with refinements and ongoing updates the “Bing Ads platform is able to deliver Broad Match conversion metrics that are 85% of…
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Potential Microsoft CEO Elop Would Consider Selling Bing
The Microsoft CEO derby is heating up. As we discussed earlier this week the short list is down to a handful of candidates, including current Ford CEO Alan Mulally and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop (soon to rejoin Microsoft in charge of devices). Apparently Elop has floated some bold ideas that may…
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The New Visual Brand Ads: What Google Banners & Bing Hero Ads Mean For Search
In the past two weeks, both Microsoft and Google began testing display-style ads that appear on search results for select brand queries. Many see the introduction of these ads as a money grab to get brands to pay for traffic they would otherwise get fo…
Bing Ads Executives Share Plans To Make Bing A Better Ad Platform
Earlier this year, there were questions about where Bing would stand after CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled Microsoft’s reorganization plan in July. It turns out the move has been a good one for the search engine. Microsoft chose to give Bing an enterprise-wide embrace. The company is now…
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Microsoft Pilots “Hero Ads” For Branded Search Queries On Windows 8.1 Smart Search
Today, Microsoft unveiled a new ad unit for branded search called Hero Ads. The new units are appearing on select exact match brand queries in Smart Search on Windows 8.1. Consider these ads as the front window or as David Ku, Microsoft VP of engineering referred to them, “a brand’s…
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