Bing adds social notworking integration

MICROSOFT'S Bing search engine is going social by adding Twitter and Facebook.

Bing will now offer real-time Twitter updates, even in Bing News, allowing users to keep up to date with the latest trending topics. Examples of what kinds of things might be found via tweets are reports on the Japanese disaster or the revolts in the Middle East.

It's not all about news either, as Bing's entertainment results can be instantly shared to Facebook if a user is signed in to both. This makes use of Bing's Liked Results feature and will allow users to share their favourite films, artists, musicians and TV shows to all of their Facebook friends.

The Facebook integration goes even further by enabling an overview tab so that Facebookers can update their status directly from the Bing entertainment results. People might never visit Facebook again, instead making their updates from other sites. Well, that is if they're not using Google, of course, which still has the dominant market share for search.

These features will initially be available only in the US. Microsoft has not said when it will roll them out elsewhere, but we expect a European launch later this year. µ