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Bing Keeps Its Foot On The Gas, Adds Tweets To Results

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 5:30pm CDT by MG Siegler

Bing is something of a rarity for Microsoft these days: It’s a product that actually has good natural buzz. And for good reason too, it’s a solid product. For certain queries, it seems more useful than even, yes, Google. (And not just porn queries.) And Microsoft isn’t squandering away this opportunity, it’s keeping its foot on the gas, today attacking what is perceived to be Google’s weakness: Real-time search results.

While that’s a little misleading — Google actually does have plenty of data that gets into its system almost immediately — what everyone seems to mean by real-time results these days is Twitter results. And that’s exactly what Bing is adding. Kind of. As it notes on its blog:

Today we’re unveiling an initial foray into integrating more real time data into our search results, starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres.

While Microsoft is still in the process of rolling this feature out, you can see what it will look in the image below featuring AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher (who also has some more details about the feature). Apparently, Bing will update these Twitter results every minute, reports the New York Times.

But it’s important to note that Bing will not be crawling every tweet that runs through Twitter. Instead, it will focus on only those from people it deems important based on follower counts and volume of tweets. As they note:

We’re not indexing all of Twitter at this time… just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start. We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets. We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter’s public API to surface Tweets in people search. We’d love to hear your feedback as we think through future possibilities in real time search.

What else is a bit odd about Bing’s addition of tweets is that apparently they’ll only show up for very specific searches. So, for example, if you search for “Ryan Seacrest tweets” you’ll find them in the results, but presumably you won’t (at least not yet) if you just search for “Ryan Seacrest.” That would be much more interesting.

Google has been doing things in recent months such as adding Google profiles and Facebook profiles prominently in search results. But so far it has shied away from highlighting tweets in their results, even as dozens of other search companies pop up to do just that. Even if these tweet results are rather pointless, this will be seen as Bing doing something Google cannot. And that may just give a few more people a reason to use Bing.

Well played, Bing.

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Joost, Meet The Competition. Magnify.Net Sees Growth In White Label Video Platform

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 4:56pm CDT by Leena Rao

With the news surrounding the implosion of Joost and the startup’s move towards providing white label video platforms for companies, we thought it would be a good idea to check in with one of Joost’s new competitors. As we wrote in our post about Joost’s prospects as a white label video community provider, there is already plenty of competition, including Brightcove, Magnify, and Ooyala.

Brightcove is perhaps the best-known player in the space. But another one which has been relatively successful in creating interactive video sites for brands is Magnify.net. The video hosting and sharing platform, which launched in 2007, is rapidly growing its white label service and is expected to be cash-flow positive by the end of the year, according to co-founder Steve Rosenbaum.

Magnify has recently partnered with several sites to power their video aggregation platforms, including deals with Etsy, CarsonDaly.TV, and Bicycling.com. Magnify has also created white label video channels for Zappos, New York Magazine and The Weather Channel.

Bicycling.com recently decided to shift from Magnify’s competitor Brightcove to power its platform for original content. The cycling site is launching its Magnify-powered site in conjunction with its coverage of the Tour de France, which starts July 4th. It was attracted by Magnify’s social features, such as the ability to pull UGC videos from sites like YouTube and updates from Twitter. Bicycling.com online editor David L’Heureux plans to integrate Twitter streams onto the platform from cycling all-stars like Lance Armstrong. Magnify also allows the online magazine to aggregate a mix of videos and makes it easy for the site to offer readers external videos and internal media that is created by Bicycling.com.

Additionally, Magnify is creating subject-driven channels, such as IranLive, that aggregates video content around a specific topic and also integrates live Twitter streams with the mentions of that topic. The IranLive Twitter stream has filters that remove any Tweets with derogatory or abusive language.

What does the Joost white-label service do again?

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Bing Wants To Feature Your Best Summer Photo — No Keg Stands, Please

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 3:59pm CDT by MG Siegler

It may sound kind of silly, but when I talk to people outside of the tech world about Bing, the first thing brought up is usually how they like the pictures. And now Microsoft has created a contest on Facebook to let one user get their own picture featured on Bing.

The Bing Summer Travel Photo Contest is asking Facebook users to submit their best summer vacation photos. The community will then vote on them, and the winner will get its day in the sun, so to speak, on Monday, August 3 — appearing to the millions who visit Bing on that day.

Naturally, there are some rules for these photos as Microsoft probably doesn’t want kickass keg party pictures on the Bing homepage. Obviously, no alcohol, smoking, guns, violence or nudity will be allowed. But Microsoft also doesn’t want any pictures with recognizable people or any third party trademarked images, so they don’t get sued. Here’s what they are looking for:

* The image should make you want to find out more about it.
* The image should draw you in and be a starting place for exploring Bing
* The subject of the photo must provide enough interest to program all the content that we use to support that exploration.
* Strive for subtlety and poetry. You shouldn’t have to know that it’s Halloween, Columbus Day, or Boss’s Day to enjoy the photo.

In a blog post on the matter, Microsoft also lays out how it goes about choosing the images it uses on Bing. “The images are chosen from a variety of licensed photos with the goal of inspiring a sense of exploration and delight while piquing your interest to learn more.”

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CrunchGear Raises ~$5000 for Child’s Play Charity

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 3:50pm CDT by Peter Ha

Wiimbledon 2009 has come and gone and I’m happy to report that it was a great success! We had 98 tournament participants and everything went off without a hitch. With the help of generous eBayers, tournament attendees and Barcade, we’ve raised somewhere in the vicinity of $5,000 for the Child’s Play Charity. On behalf of CrunchGear, Wiimbledon and Child’s Play, I’d like to thank the following sponsors for hooking us up.
Details On The Upcoming New Facebook iPhone App. Now With Events!

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 3:04pm CDT by Jason Kincaid

It’s been a big day for Facebook, with news earlier this morning that the social network will soon be totally revamping its privacy settings and making it easier to share with the entire web. Now developer Joe Hewitt, who is responsible for Facebook’s massively popular iPhone application, has posted a note to the site describing some of the new features we can expect from the latest iteration of the app, which he says is “98% done”. Hewitt doesn’t give an exact release date, but we can likely expect it very soon.

From Hewitt’s post:

1. The “new” News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums
11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call

All of these will be welcome additions, particularly the ability to view and respond to events listings, which were oddly missing in the iPhone Facebook app until now (I routinely found myself having to access the web version of the site in order to look up details). Unfortunately, Hewitt writes that Push notifications, which Apple enabled with the release of the iPhone 3.0 update, will not make it into this release — we’ll have to wait for the next point update later this summer.

Update: Hewitt has provided us with some screenshots of the upcoming app. Looks like a big improvement.

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The Looming Facebook Privacy Fiasco

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 2:22pm CDT by Jason Kincaid

Facebook’s privacy conference call just ended, and it’s clear some major changes are going to be coming to the social network soon. Some of these, like a totally revamped privacy control page, are both long overdue and very welcome. But others, like the Transition Tool, seem ripe for disaster.

Facebook clearly wants its users to become more comfortable sharing their content across the web, because that’s what needs to happen if the site is going to take Twitter head-on with real-time search capabilities. Unfortunately that’s far easier said than done for the social network, which has for years trumpeted its granular privacy settings as one of its greatest assets. Now, those settings are turning into problematic obstacles.

But Facebook sees its redesigned control panel as an opportunity to invite users to start shrugging off their privacy. So it’s piggybacking the new ‘Everyone’ feature on top of the Transition Tool, which is designed to help users acclimate themselves to the new settings. Facebook is planning to test out six different versions of the Transition Tool, and will probably settle on around two different versions for its general release (apparently different tools will be shown depending on your current settings).

To get an idea of just how badly this might mess things up, one need only look at the wording for “Transition Tool 2″, which was shown to the press during the conference call (screenshot below). The tool’s heading invites users to update their privacy settings, which is fair enough given that they’re getting totally reworked. But it also says “While updating your new settings, make it easier for friends to connect with you by making a few fields visible to Everyone. Please note that Everyone means everyone on the Internet.” That may be intended as a suggestion, but it sure sounds like more of a command. And you can be sure that the millions of Facebook users who have no idea what the implications are of sharing their personal data with Google and the world will be happy to tick off those “Everyone” radio buttons.

And that’s my real problem with all of this. Facebook has allowed users to share some of their information with ‘Everyone’ for a few months now, but those options have been nestled under Facebook’s privacy settings (most people probably didn’t even know it was there). Now these users are going to be seeing invitations front-and-center to share with everyone, and Facebook is telling them that this will somehow make it easier to connect with friends. Perhaps Facebook is confident that its users are smart enough to realize that sharing those drunken party photos with the world is a bad idea, but I’m not.

Many of Facebook’s users are still in high school. Some are even younger than that (it isn’t hard to lie about your age on the Internet). And many of these people simply don’t understand that Google is forever. Just look at Facebook’s Vanity URLs for proof: Facebook made it very clear that these are permanent, which means that you’re going to be stuck with the same username five or ten years down the line. Yet there are still countless users grabbing names like ‘drunkdude’. That’s going to look great when your boss tries to add you as a friend.

Fortunately Facebook seems to be preparing itself for the worst. During the call, VP Communications Elliot Schrage noted that while Facebook is using a broad definition for “Everyone” right now — meaning the entire Internet — it isn’t going to actually start sharing the data with search engines immediately. Rather, it sounds like Facebook is going to keep these posts contained inside the social network at first, just in case users start over-sharing with reckless abandon (which they probably will).

In any case, Facebook is going to achieve its biggest goals with these updates: people will soon be sharing far more with the web than they were previously, and the social network will be able to mount a substantial challenge against Twitter. Of course, this isn’t the way Facebook is positioning the changes. One of my favorite parts of the conference call was when ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick noted that Facebook was clearly looking to encourage users to open up their data to the public and asked for the social network’s motivations. Facebook’s response? It wants people to make their data public because it helps disambiguate users with similar names. My phone was muted at the time, but I was laughing heartily.

Image Source

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Twitter To Developers: “Tweet” Your Heart Out, But Don’t “Twitter” It

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 1:34pm CDT by MG Siegler

There’s been quite a bit of controversy over the past several hours over words and images related to Twitter being used by third-party developers. Yesterday, Twitter seemed to threaten one party over the use of the word “tweet” and some UI elements that were similar to Twitter’s own. This morning, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone clarified Twitter’s position on this a bit for us, stating that, “As part of this support, we encourage developers of new applications and services built using Twitter APIs to invent original branding for their projects rather than use our marks, logos, or look and feel.”

But there was still some confusion about what Twitter was actually saying, and more importantly, what it was planning to do with violators of this. So now Stone has written a blog post further clarifying things.

Here’s the key nugget:

We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of “going after” the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important.

So there you go, feel free to use the word “tweet” in your projects. But use it wisely.

However, the use of the word “Twitter” is something the company is going to look down upon:

Regarding the use of the word Twitter in projects, we are a bit more wary although there are some exceptions here as well. After all, Twitter is the name of our service and our company so the potential for confusion is much higher. When folks ask us about naming their application with “Twitter” we generally respond by suggesting more original branding for their project. This avoids potential confusion down the line.

That makes sense since it is the actual name of the company after all. And it does need to do some basic protection of its name.

[photo: flickr/d'arcy norman]

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GDGT Launches For Non Stop Gadget Action

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 12:50pm CDT by Michael Arrington

Last summer we broke the news that Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block would team with former editor-in-chief Peter Rojas to create a new gadget startup. Today that new startup, GDGT, launches. Gadget lovers rejoice - this is a social site where you can obsess over those tiny bundles of tech joy among others just as geeky as you.

GDGT (pronounced “g-d-g-t,” but I like to just say “gadget”) is a highly structured wiki that centers on tech gadgets. Like our own Crunchbase, anyone can edit any information on the site, but everything is structured which allows for lots of slicing and dicing of the data.

The site includes intensely detailed specs on each product and groups products into logical categories. There are over a dozen categories and thousands of products in GDGT now, and users will quickly add more. All that structured data also allows for an incredibly useful Gadget finder tool as well.

Users select gadgets that they own, used to own, or want, and can add reviews and ratings. Blog reviews are threaded into the discussion as well:

GDGT also has a forum feature where users can discuss relevant gadget related topics. Here’s a thread, for example, where people fretting over the decision to buy an iPhone 3Gs can use each other as a sort of support group. Each user has a profile page with their gadgets and contributions to the community.

GDGT isn’t saying much about funding, although we’ve heard they raised around half a million dollars in an angel round led by True Ventures and Betaworks, plus a number of angel investors.

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Live Blog: The Facebook Privacy Conference Call

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 11:56am CDT by Jason Kincaid
This morning Facebook is holding a conference call/web share for press outlining changes the site is making to its privacy options. Facebook hasn’t given us much of a heads up as to exactly what they’ll be changing, but there’s a good chance it will have something to do with the ‘Everyone’ sharing settings the site has recently been toying around with, which takes the social network one step closer to mimicking Twitter’s functionality. There’s also a chance Facebook will be overhauling its convoluted privacy control pages. The call begins at 10 AM PST.
- Here to discuss latest privacy settings on Facebook. Rolling out some tests in the following week. Here to brief us are Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly and Leah Pearlman
- Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share. Privacy controls enhance this mission.
- Facebook is acknowledging how its current privacy settings have become confusing.
- When people can control who can see their content, they share more meaningfully.
- The publisher privacy control that’s currently in testing is proving quite effective. Anyone anyone wants to share with the public can share more broadly.
- Facebook is removing regional networks. Initially when Facebook started, networks were the ‘bedrock’ of privacy. When they extended beyond colleges/work networks, they opened up regional networks. These generated a lot of confusion. Fragmented the user experience, some networks were far larger than others (SF vs. Australia). 50% of users aren’t in a regional network.
- Facebook is launching new simple settings. FINALLY.
- Anywhere people set privacy on the site, they’ll be able to choose from the same sets of options. There will be a consistent set of options: Share with ‘Everyone’. Can share with ‘Friends and Networks’. Share with ‘Friends of Friends’ (FB says it’s good for photos, restaurant recommendations,etc ). “Share With Friends”. And finally, “Customize”, which lets you specify who can see a certain item.
- Consolidating six different privacy pages into one simple privacy page. There’s a little question mark next to every item so you can see what the section pertains to.
- Third part of these changes are the way people connect. Balancing way people access information with their desire to connect. Now testing ways to opt-in to these new settings.
- The Transition Tool: Facebook wants everyone to know what’s going on, so people understand. Explain to people that if they open key pieces of information, it can make the experience “richer”. Three options people can select for in this Transition tool (there are six different transition tools in testing internally, they’re not sure what the final one will be).
- Transition Tool 2: Users can be usually placed in two categories — one that likes to use granular privacy settings, and another that does more broad settings. This allows them to perform these broad privacy settings.
- The Transition tool is a “Powerful opt-in” to make changes that lets users change how they’d like their privacy settings to default (whether it be public or private).
  Q: It seems you’re encouraging people to share more information with everyone. Is that the case?
  A(Schrage): Trying to manage the digital tension between sharing and privacy. People should be as open or closed as they want to be. We think we can accommodate that.
  A2 (Pearlman): Many people who sign in to Facebook, it’s tough for people to disambiguate themselves when they have the same name. We’re encouraging people to be more open in some cases.
  
  Q: It sounds like things shared by everyone will be indexable by major search engines, right?
  A (Pearlman): It’s certainly something that we’re talking about. But it’s not like that at this time.
  A2 (Schrage): We want people to be sensitive to this sharing, so we’re defining it in the broadest sense, so people in the test experience it before we make these changes (with the search engines).
  
  Q: How are you going to educate people about the impact of sharing with ‘everyone’?
  A(Schrage): We think one of the reasons people don’t use settings is that they’re not simple enough, so we’ve spent a lot of time talking with users about making these more simple. And making these changes in real time as they are publishing.
  A2 (Pearlman): When people decide to publish to everyone by default the first time they do it, a dialog will pop up warning them. Trying to catch people when they’re actually about to post.
  
  Q:Friend of mine is a therapist, some of clients are popping up in ‘people you may know’, which she thought was creepy. Also, you comment on advertisers, wondering how this will play into open stream initiative.
  A (Schrage): Because someone pops up in people you may know, doesn’t mean any information is shared, often results from contact importer. Doesn’t mean there’s that actual connection, just hit the ‘x’ to erase it. With regard to the streams, Facebook isn’t changing anything about the way we share data with advertisers (we don’t share it without user permission).
  
  Q: How are Facebook ad settings for local businesses that may have used regional networks to target their ads?
  A: We’re going to be mapping current regional network information, move to current city. So they may not be in the network, but they can look at their current city. Also have previously used other methods like IP targeting to ensure that ads are delivered more effectively.
  
  Q: When you roll out the transition tools, will there be one for everyone, or will they be assigned by the bucket a user is in?
  A: We’re going to initially be testing six of them, will probably settle on two different designs that will roll out to everyone. Overall committed to help users reflect settings they have already chosen.
  
  Q: What will now be public by default?
  A: Historically users have always had control over how they connect and share information. Only can see name and profile picture unless you share more than that.
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Firefox 3.5 Hits Five Million Downloads in 24 Hours. Respectable, But Not A Record.

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 11:48am CDT by Erick Schonfeld

In the first 24 hours since its release yesterday, Firefox 3.5 has been downloaded more than 5 million times. (It took only a few hours to pass a million). That is certainly respectable, but doesn’t quite measure up to the mania that Firefox 3.0 set off last summer, when it achieved a “world record” 8.3 million downloads in a single day. Maybe we’ll have to wait for Firefox 4.0 to beat that record. But Firefox 3.5 might still beat the 11 million downloads Safari 4 got over its first three days of availability.

Who’s.among.us has some live usage stats from about 800,000 Internet surfers it is tracking. According to its data, it estimates that Firefox 3.5 already has gained about a 2.4 percent browser market share. Overall, it puts all versions of Firefox at 29 percent. That suggests close to 10 percent of Firefox users have already upgraded. It also puts Safari’s market share at only 2.5 percent, which seems low. (Other stats put it closer to 8 percent).

Looking at our own Google Analytics for TechCrunch, 28 percent of Firefox visitors are already on 3.5, but our readers are big Firefox fans—nearly half of all visitors use some version of Firefox, which is a much higher percentage than for most sites.

I’ve been playing around with the 3.5 release candidate for about a week. It is much zippier than 3.0, and I’m already addicted to the plus-sign feature on the tab bar which makes it easier to add tabs. And I love where it’s going with open video standards. It is also a bit crashy when I have too many tabs open, but that’s getting better. Some add-ons don’t yet work, but nothing crucial. Overall, it’s a much better product.

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