Connect with BrightPages.com by becoming a Fan on Facebook, following us on Twitter, or subscribing to our RSS feed.
Microsoft’s Bing search engine has been getting headlines lately for the new iteration of its mobile app. While its market-share and relative position in the search engine rankings haven’t changed lately, Microsoft is clearly planning for the future with its latest offering. In contrast to Google, whose mobile app strategy seems to be limited to integrating and serving up Google’s ever-growing assortment of web services, Bing integrates certain key features of popular mobile services such as Facebook and Foursquare into its own app’s functionality. PCWorld’s Brennon Slattery reports that the following services are now available from within the app:
- OpenTable and GrubHub are now available within restaurant searches made through the app
- Foursquare, Facebook, and Microsoft Live Messenger’s “check-in” options are now available from within the Bing app
And so, while Google seems intent on creating (or buying) products to compete with these other popular web services, Microsoft appears to be more interested in forming strategic alliances (a strategy that makes sense for an underdog). However, this new strategy presents its own challenges: now that the mobile app marketplace is maturing and becoming a serious arena for the fight over revenue (and eyeballs/finger-tips), Microsoft’s one-stop hub for web services might work to the disadvantage of the companies whose services it integrates, at least insofar as it keeps people from using their own custom apps. Of course, as Slattery notes, the “ability to check-in through Bing will not replace the other apps, which provide more than check-in functionality”. But one wonders to what extent these smaller companies might in the future have to choose between being web/mobile destinations of their own (with access to the potential for ad revenue that accompanies such things) and developing distinct functionality (such as “checking in” or “liking”) that is then made available to other sites. Perhaps we’ll see in the year ahead. Happy Holidays — see you in 2011!
More on the web:
Leslie Horn, “Google Dominates ComScore’s November Search Engine Stats,” PC Magazine (12/16/2010).
Brennan Slattery, “Microsoft Makes Inroads with Bing, Releases New App Version,” PCWorld (12/16/2010).
{ 0 comments… add one now }