Facebook Drops Bing As Its Search Results Provider

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Facebook has replaced Microsoft’s Bing search engine with a new tool developed in house at the popular social media website, according to various media reports.
Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic said on Friday that the decision to stop including results from Bing was confirmed by a company spokesperson, and came as Facebook has “revamped its own search offerings, introducing a tool on Monday that allows users to quickly find past comments and other information posted by their friends.”
“The decision may reflect the increasing importance that Facebook sees in Web search technology, a market dominated by rival Google,” Oreskovic added. “Searches on Facebook have long been geared toward helping users connect with friends and to find other information that exists within the walls of the… social networking service. But for years, Facebook’s search results also included links to standalone websites that were provided by Bing.”
A company spokesperson told Reuters that the social network was not currently showing web search results because it was focusing on internal content posted by the over 1.3 billion members of the website. The spokesperson said that Facebook continued to work with the Redmond, Washington-based tech company in other areas.
In comments made to VentureBeat’s Daniel Terdiman, a Microsoft spokesperson said that Facebook has “recently changed its search experience to focus on helping people tap into information that’s been shared with them on Facebook versus a broader set of web results.” The individual confirmed to Teridman that the move had actually happened “a while ago.”
Microsoft and Facebook first started working together in 2007, when the Windows-developer invested $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in what was then a fledgling startup, according to Nicole Arce of Tech Times. However, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts during a July conference call that search was one of the more important areas of growth for the company, suggesting that Internet surfers could eventually turn to Facebook before Google or Bing when it came to looking something up online.
Facebook had been using Bing as its in-house search engine, allowing users to look for more information about their friends while keeping longtime rival Google from becoming directly involved in the social network, Mashable writer Samantha Murphy Kelly said. The announcement comes as the website has taken other steps to improve both its search and trending news sections, including the addition of a Twitter-style live feed that includes user mentions, she added.
Earlier this week, Facebook vice president of search Tom Stocky announced that the company has revamped Graph Search so that users could directly look for older posts written by themselves or other users, Arce explained. However, she also noted “the fact that pretty much nobody immediately noticed that Facebook search dropped Bing almost a week ago indicates that not too many people care about what search on Facebook offers them.”
Bing is the second-ranked Web search provider in the US, with a nearly 20 percent market share, according to Oreskovic. As part of its original deal with Microsoft, Facebook started carrying Microsoft-provided banner ads in international markets in October 2007, but ceased doing so three years later in order to assume greater control of its advertising business. During that same time, Facebook expanded its use of Bing search results, he added.