With Microsoft releasing Bing and Google working on their newest search algorithm called Google Caffeine, there’s a lot of effort around incorporating the idea of social search with your organic results.

One of my biggest complaints about search is that my results are impacted by just about everything that’s available on the web. If I’m searching for a question about a certain topic, I don’t want to get results from sites that are completely irrelevant to the goal of my search.

For example, if I’m interested in a question about coffee, I don’t want to get results about people who have talked about sitting around the coffee shop and chatting all day. I may be more interested in the growth regions, bean roasting methods and brewing tasks.

There may be five or ten sites on the Internet that are really great at providing this content and I’d like to just search those sites for my answer. Google provides the ability to do this kind of targeted search tuning by using Google Subscribed Links.

Google has already put together some groupings of sites in categories like Tools, Fun and Games, Lifestyle, and Technology. When you search for certain keywords that have been programmed into these Google Subscribed Links you’ll get special results based on the search links that have been put together for you.

The problem is that Google doesn’t make it easy for people to setup their own search metrics. Developers can create their own, but it’s not as user-friendly I would hope.

Post from: EveryJoe

Using Google Subscribed Links

The FCC has filed its findings about the Zune HD on the FCC website, which provide a breakdown of the device’s specs and several pictures of its inner (and outer) workings. Engadget sums up the info learned:

• Zune HD will be available in 16GB and 32GB flavors
• The device’s user interface is built on Windows CE
• An NVIDIA Tegra chip is used for graphics processing

The FCC’s pictures, which you can view on Engadget’s website, also include several shots of the Zune HD’s dock (along with pics of the device itself with a bunch of Post-it arrow stickers all over it).

Next, Gizmodo got its hands on exclusive images of Best Buy’s inventory system, which reveal the suggested retail prices as $220 for the 16GB model, and $290 for the 32GB. I hope these turn out to be accurate, because they’re very competitive. The Best Buy inventory also lists the surprisingly-soon September 8th as the Zune HD’s launch date. That I have a bit of a harder time swallowing, since multiple reports lately have described the device’s UI as “still a work in progress,” and a release date less than a month away gives MS precious little time to do any real marketing to hype its release. (Then again, maybe they already are hyping it with all these carefully-choreographed “leaks”…?)

Finally, CNet’s Donald Bell has posted some new screenshots of the Zune HD’s mobile web browser. These represent the first time the browser has been seen. They reveal how the browser looks in both portrait and landscape mode, how the touchscreen typing handles (the verdict: “just as speedy and precise as the iPhone”), and one unannounced feature. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Zune browser’s search capability is going to be powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Image: Microsoft.

Post from: EveryJoe

Zune HD specs, pricing, & more leaked

The interface is not well designed but if you are looking to compare results especially when you are checking search engine ranking of your keywords, the bing vs google is definitely functional.

Go ahead and give this a try until probably deciding which ones to stick on. I know most of you like Google, but c’mon Bing is worth a try.

Image from bing-vs-google.

Post from: EveryJoe

Bing and Google Combined

For the month of June, Bing is looking great by becoming the 13th most visited site in the U.S. with 49.57 million. This puts Bing ahead of Digg, Twitter, and CNN. While their ultimate goal is far from happening, their burst of traffic in the first month or so has been impressive. I believe their development team should work overtime and fast in hearing out all the positive remarks and do something on the negative items in their search engine. As long as they continue to read and address user comments, their growth traffic can grow over a long period of time.

Digg has received 38.96 million visitors, Twitter 23 million visitors, and CNN with 28.54 million visitors for June.

Have you used the Bing search engine lately?

Image from Bing.

Post from: EveryJoe

Bing is Doing Good

There’s a number of tips you can manage to add to your searching routine to help pull back that finer tuned section of results you’ve been looking for all this time. PC Magazine has an article that lists a variety of tips on succeeding with your searches.

Your first thought may be using a variety of operators in your searches to include, exclude or search for an exact phrase on the web. The PC Magazine article spotlights some other actions you can take to automate searches or remember some specific searches you make regularly as well.

Image: sxc.hu

Post from: EveryJoe

How to Really Search for Results

In an excerpt of the application description for the patent:

“The contributor uploads self images for viewing and rating (or voting) by viewers who choose provide an opinion on different fashion and/or cosmetic looks of the contributor. The contributor takes images show the contributor presented with a number (e.g., two) of different fashion choices. The snapshots can then be processed for upload to a website or other accessible location by one or more viewers. The viewers can cast a vote for one of the images by selecting the desired image, in response to which the viewer and/or contributor will be presented with overall statistics for that set of images as to how other viewers voted, as well as a next set of photos depicting the user in a different fashion and/or cosmetic choice. This process can continue until terminated.”

Where is Microsoft going to use this patent? Maybe in their BING search engine that has all the eye candy they can put there.

Have you spotted places where they have used this already?

Image from the web.

Post from: EveryJoe

What is Microsoft Doing with Hot-or-Not?