Redmond, Washington – Around six months back Microsoft owned Bing introduced its Social Sidebar, and now in a fresh move the company is currently trying out with a new design, which features more matching content from friends and enhanced functionality. The search engine has now discarded the gray background and created a more seamless look with a white background.
In the previous design, effortlessly though, to learn more about a friend’s question or response, you simply had to scroll over for more information. Now, that information appears below right below their name.
Below is the Before & After image.
Below is a prototype of how the Social Sidebar still appears for most people:
Image Credit: (SearchEngineLand.com)
And below is the screenshot of “after” view, or how it appears for the small number of people could get the glimpse of new look:
Image Credit: (SearchEngineLand.com)
Here is a full list of the new format and complete changes:
- Removal of Facebook share box with “Post” button
- Replaces the gray background to keep the sidebar with the same white background as the rest of the search page
- Adds a new “Social Results” header and count for matching social results
- “Friends Who Might Know” and “People Who Know” headings have been altered to “From Friends” and “From Social Networks”
- Drops “Activity” stream of general questions friends have posted on Facebook through the Social Sidebar
- See how many likes and/or comments on one’s relevant post from Facebook
- Deeper integration with Facebook to deliver more relevant results
In addition, sharing to Facebook from Bing has been modified slightly with the new “Post” button. The “Want to share it with friends?” box has been removed. Simply clicking the “Post” button gives you the ability to share.
Admittedly, one of the most visible changes is that the “hover” display that would appear for the “People Who Know” section is now a history. Instead, Bing is showing more expanded information in the newly-renamed “From Social Networks” section.
For example, previously when you hover over your mouse, an expanded card appears to the left of the column. Now, with the new style display, the hover has been removed. Rather, more information is displayed by default.
Among other changes unfurled in the new format, the general Activity stream disappears. In addition, Bing is now digging deeper through all the shares, likes, photos, comments and status updates that it sees on Facebook from those connected to you, in order to better surface content.
Again, from a search marketing standpoint, there is little that marketers can gain to improve their visibility in the “From Friends” section other than to have a presence on Facebook and hope that people do count you among their friends.
On the other hand, however, the “From Social Networks” section can trigger if companies are deemed matches from their content on a wide-range of social media networks, such as from Facebook to even Google+.
Well, if you do not see the new Social Sidebar, hang in there. Currently, only a select few have access to the new Bing Social Sidebar. The company hopes to roll out in the coming weeks.