Binging in the Holidays (With Donuts!)

Microsoft announced a bunch of new Bing updates, most notably deeper Facebook integration and a coming update for the iPhone app that allows users to upload their own panorama images.

When You Wish Upon a List

Katie takes a look at some online services that could help you–or those shopping for you–find the right gifts this holiday season.

More Change at Microsoft's Bing, as It Goes Deep Into Entertainment

Microsoft is rolling out a new series of updates to its Bing search service, including a deep dive into a media-rich entertainment vertical. The software company has been pushing hard in the search arena, trying to gain market share from the dominant Google and the No. 2 player, Yahoo.

Microsoft's Bing Makes More UI Changes–And Checks In With Foursquare

Today, Microsoft’s search engine-that-could, Bing, will begin rolling out another significant upgrade to the user interface seen by consumers. Microsoft also announced it would integrate hot geolocation start-up Foursquare into its maps. Will the moves help Bing keep growing its share?

Bing Hot on Yahoo’s Heels

Nielsen published its February search market metrics this week and it’s more good news for Microsoft. The company’s new Bing search engine saw its market share jump to 12.5 percent from 10.9 percent in January. That puts it within two percentage points of Yahoo.

Attack of the Verticals? Bing Up Again in Another Search Market Poll (Google Still Scary!)

Yesterday, the monthly search market share numbers from comScore were released, showing Microsoft Bing up, Yahoo down and Google maintaining its dominance. This time it appears to be the verticals that are helping Bing, which has been its strategy to differentiate itself from the Google juggernaut.

Speaking of the Microsoft-Google Game of Internet Risk, Bing Adds More Square Kilometers in Maps

In one of the more interesting battlefields of the multi-front war between Google and Microsoft, Bing Maps today added what it calls its “largest imagery update to date, adding 6.7 million square kilometers of new imagery.” The ongoing innovations to online mapping by both Google and Microsoft has been a boon to consumers, who are getting increasingly cool and substantive looks at our world.

Microsoft Demos Live Fish-Tossing in Bing Maps at TED

Debuting a series of eye-candy features in its ongoing oneupmanship with Google in the increasingly competitive mapping arena, Bing Maps architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas unveiled a new series of enhancements to its spatial search offerings, some of which are available today. Coolest ones: Indoor panoramas to move mapping inside and real-time video overlays to maps, which Microsoft illustrated by tossing fish and bench-pressing crabs during its demo today at the TED conference.

Two Microsoft Search Dudes Talk About Bing! (BoomTown's Flip Is Waiting by the Phone for the Google Search Gurus' Call!)

Yesterday, BoomTown liveblogged a demo session Microsoft held for reporters about some new features on its Bing search service, a glimpse at what Twitter and Facebook integration will look like and the debut of a nifty new beta of its online map service. It is still the bazillion-dollar question–and I do mean a bazillion dollars, since that’s about what Microsoft has lost online after many years of trying–whether Bing can gain some truly significant share in the search market and challenge the sector’s behemoth, Google. So, at the event, I talked to two Microsoft search execs–Harry Shum, a corporate VP who is leading core search development, and Brian MacDonald, corporate VP for Core Search Program Management–about their thoughts on Bing so far.

Microsoft Slides of Bing Demo: Mapping and Mash-Ins

This morning, Microsoft showed off some new features of Bing and reviewed how the search service has been doing since its launch. Here are the slides that the company’s top search execs used in the presentation, which included not much new stuff, except for a cool update to its mapping and getting third-party developers to do “mash-ins.”

Bing Back With a Bang

Not With a Bing, but a Whimper III

Bing: Now With Visual Search