According to multiple media reports, “This is an partnership is based on a shared belief that people are at the center of task completion,” Bing corporate vice president Derrick Connell wrote in a blog post. “To help users find the right answers developers to determine who is influential and trusted on different topics on the web. Bing and Klout share this vision.”
With this alliance, Bing’s search sidebar, the social additive that includes Facebook, Twitter, and Quora data, has been enhanced with Klout scores to give searchers a better idea of the subject matter expertise of people that Bing suggests in the “People Who Know” box (pictured below).
Presumably the company says, “There will be more to come down the road,” he says, but the first things users will notice about the partnership are Klout data surfacing on Bing’s sidebar and highlights from Bing surfacing in the “moments” section of some people’s Klout profiles.
As for the Bing sidebar, you might notice a person’s Klout score and topics they are influential about. “This will help people connect swiftly with the right experts on the things they are searching for,” the Bing spokesperson says.
On the other hand, Klout CEO Joe Fernandez wrote in a separate post that the organization’s aim is to help people understand their influence, and be recognized for it.
Adding further, he said, “I was surprised a few months ago after meeting with the Microsoft Bing leadership to learn how much our visions overlapped,” Fernandez wrote. “[We] both believe that the growth of the social web and the increasing importance of your online identity are fundamentally transforming the Internet, making it even more important to understand people, not just pages.”
As a matter of fact, the companies have done more than simply join hands; Microsoft has made a strategic investment in Klout, but did not disclose how much. Klout did say, however, that is has “signed a multi-year agreement where Bing will become one of Klout’s most significant partners.”
Klout said Bing will provide it with additional search data, a long-time missing piece of the user-influence puzzle. The company said that it would be integrating search data from Bing in its scoring algorithm. The startup will use various search signals to more accurately reflect a person’s real-life influence in his or her overall score.
“Just like Wikipedia articles can reflect a person’s real world influence, search results for a person signal accomplishments achieved beyond social networks and serve to influence others,” Fernandez wrote.
Referring to the Bing “highlights” on Klout, he adds, “These Bing ‘highlights’ may include the number of times a person shows up as an expert in the ‘People Who Know’ section of Bing’s sidebar or the volume/frequency of searches for that person, demonstrating how search can be a powerful new indicator of online influence.”
In fact, the post further stated: “This is just the beginning of a new collaboration between the two companies, and another great example of Bing’s commitment to working with industry partners to not only expand its social experience and help people do more with search, but to bring search as a signal into other social experiences,” he says.
The companies did not disclose the terms or amount of the investment.