Facebook-Microsoft Alliance to challenge Google Search

theprovince.com

9 points·tyng··8 comments

"Starting Wednesday, Bing will take data posted on Facebook -- such as users' "likes" or preferences -- and use that information to provide more relevant search results."

This is a step ahead of Google's Social Circle, which currently pulls data form buzz and Twitter.

Does this mean we're going to see a FB + MS pairup vs Twitter + Google? Is this the new battle over the long haul?

Seems like the cultures somewhat line up... FB is a super hacker-centric company with world domination ambitions, and Twitter seems to be more open-ey what with its main product being pretty utilitarian until recently... not to mention the whole Ev connection.

Granted, I'm sort of grasping at straws here, but would love to hear what HNers think.

looking at this decade alone, google seems to have far, far more 'world domination' ambitions than MSFT or Facebook. it's not like they release open source stuff with the primary intent of doing the public good.

Does pulling information from facebook likes really lead to better search results? How is this measured objectively?

In the long run this seems the obvious direction search will head. The facebook "like", or a twitter link is the new hyperlink. This is just a new way to use crowdsourcing to judge the quality of a link or domain. Backlink, "like", its all the same.

I'm curious: how many of you would be swayed to use Bing over Google because of this?

Not that I was terribly likely to use Bing before, but this actually makes me want to use it less.

the first time a glitch makes someone's searches get posted to their wall will be the last time anyone wants to see this

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