Microsoft: Bing Needs To Improve During Major Events (URL: ) By Kevin McLaughlin, ChannelWeb 5:47 PM EDT Thu. Jul. 02, 2009 In the wake of the media frenzy around Michael Jackson's death last week, Microsoft has acknowledged that it needs to get better at providing the appropriate level of coverage for breaking news. After celebrity gossip Web site TMZ broke the story of Jackson's death on June 24th, Bing "did not deliver the best experience" for users, said Jacquelyn Krones, senior product planner for Bing News, in a Wednesday post to the Bing community blog. TMZ's story was buried at the bottom of the main Bing page and in Bing's xRank result, which measures the popularity of celebrities and public figures based on their volume of Bing search queries. Like Google and other search engines, Bing was flooded with search queries after news of Jackson's death broke, but Bing didn't handle the rankings in a relevant way, according to Krones. Microsoft responded by triggering what Krones called a "news go big" alert to ensure that Bing would provide the proper level of coverage for the event. After an initial wave of Bing queries on Jackson's name and details about his death, searchers then shifted their attention to Jackson's famous Moonwalk dance move and to TMZ. The following day, queries shifted to names of Jackson's friends and family and to his images, songs, and videos, Krones said. Microsoft learned that people most often look for images when searching for information about entertainers, and the team will continue to make adjustments to ensure that Bing can accommodate the surge of search queries -- and the subsequent related searches -- that arise in the days after a major event, Krones said. Copyright 2009 Everything Channel |