Below is live coverage of the Keynote with Bing's Derrick Connell panel from the SMX Advanced conference.
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Barry Schwartz:
7:52:00 am
Starting in 9 minutes
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7:53:53 am
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7:59:21 am
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Here we go...
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8:02:00 am
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Change is the operative watchword in search this year, generating both opportunity and occasional frustration for online marketers. Join us for a lively discussion with Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan and Derrick Connell, corporate vice president of Bing’s Search Program Management team, who will share his insights into the challenges and compelling opportunities opening up as change continues to reshape the landscape for online marketers.
Barry Schwartz:
8:05:56 am
He is going to start with a demo
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8:07:09 am
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8:07:41 am
They learned that people, as an entity type, should be treated as a new thing.
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8:07:53 am
So they treat them as a new area on the right hand side of the site.
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8:08:41 am
Barry Schwartz:
8:09:35 am
See http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2012/06/01/summer-of-doing.aspx and http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2012/06/01/do-more-with-snapshot.aspx
Barry Schwartz:
8:09:43 am
Now demo time
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8:10:42 am
The home page is now more live as of last Friday... People love the image. There is popular now, search history and images
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8:11:34 am
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8:11:36 am
They cleaned up the page
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8:11:55 am
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For every query there is a person we can bring to the query
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8:15:20 am
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These are pics of snapshot feature
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8:15:56 am
You can post to Facebook from bing
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8:16:15 am
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Here is a rich ad
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Searching Facebook for photos is hard but Bing makes it easier
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(1) Clean Up
(2) Snap shots
(3) Sidebar with relevant people
(2) Snap shots
(3) Sidebar with relevant people
Barry Schwartz:
8:20:04 am
That was the demo now Q&A time
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8:20:21 am
Q) What is the reaction so far?
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8:20:32 am
A) Overall response has been positive...
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8:20:51 am
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8:21:39 am
Q) As screens get wider it can maybe go 3, 4 or 5 panels?
Barry Schwartz:
8:21:44 am
A) Yea, maybe (laughing)
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8:22:30 am
Q) Both you and Google has gone after social signals. But Google is using an integrated approach. You guys (Bing) is taking a side bar approach.
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8:22:45 am
A) Putting them into the organic ranking is unnatural and people don't like it.
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8:24:19 am
A) But incorporating social signals into the ranking algo does make sense
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8:26:26 am
People have their social networks, we are not a social network Bing said. Our job as a search engine is to go get the content from those search engines and rank it.
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8:26:40 am
Q) Isn't Facebook building a search engine?
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8:26:44 am
A) That is a rumor.
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8:27:53 am
Q) Does Zuckerburg use it?
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8:27:56 am
A) Yes
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8:28:23 am
Q) When you had the announcement, it was long, one thing you said was about relevancy scoring. Your internal testing shows you are "as good", how do you prove tht?
Barry Schwartz:
8:30:13 am
A) We judge our search results relative to our self and also our competitors. A year ago, we were close and now we are on par. Those were internal studies. Now they are doing external tests, showing whitelabel results... What surprised them on the branded they did pretty well, but when they flipped the logos, Bing really want. There is a perception gap.
Barry Schwartz:
8:30:45 am
It would be great to have an independent group to study this...
Barry Schwartz:
8:32:23 am
Danny talks about how he is trying to give Bing a try as a default engine... So how do you change that perception that you need Google?
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8:32:41 am
A) There is creative marketing they can do for that.
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8:33:03 am
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Q) When you first launched, it was "decision engine" is that still the case?
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8:34:13 am
A) We shifted a bit, mostly focusing... now it is "bing is for doing"
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8:35:09 am
Q) there was a time where I can't get away from your TV commercials or TV spots in shows, product placements, ads, etc... Does that continue on?
Barry Schwartz:
8:36:16 am
A) Yea, the marketing team is doing a great job. They are spending in all those channels.
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8:37:00 am
Q) Growth market share in the US... When you first started you were single digits, now you are 16 or 17% and you are on par with Yahoo or ahead. What is the goal?
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8:37:20 am
A) I'd be happy when we get to 20, a good milestone but then we will want 30, then 40, etc.
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8:37:46 am
Q) The gains have been coming off of Yahoo, not off of Google.
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8:38:34 am
A) Yahoo is losing share. Google was growing a few years and they are staying pretty flat on growth.
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8:39:49 am
Q) Danny has several XBoxes at home... Anyway... You had an update where there is Bing on XBox, it is kind of neat. But it is not Bing, it is a brand but not Bing the search engine. Is Bing the search brand for Microsoft?
Barry Schwartz:
8:40:54 am
A) It is not as broad as that. Anything that is Bing branded is built by the Bing team. They use some of the search tech for ranking stuff on the Xbox. Speech is in Bing. Same thing on the phone.
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8:42:05 am
Q) What is going on with voice search... Apple came out with Siri and now everyone is using it, despite Google having it. And you had it before Google had it.
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8:42:41 am
A) Voice search helps break down the query but it is hard because you still need to fetch the index and it is hard thing for a search engine to process a natural language query.
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8:44:08 am
Q) Windows 8, what impact will that have on Bing?
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A) It is more of an industry thing.... Bing has a set of apps for the release, sports, news, weather, etc. It is exciting, it is going to be a big year.
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Q) There is a default search in windows 8, down to the hardware level.
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8:45:20 am
A) I don't know.
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8:46:23 am
Q) How do I communicate to you that I run these entities, i.e. I run this blog, this is my image database, etc.
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8:46:53 am
A) You don't really need to do anything, just do what you are doing. As the sidebar evolves, those social recommendations you get from friends will become increasingly important
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8:48:11 am
Q) Yahoo kills site explorer, so??
Barry Schwartz:
8:49:00 am
A) Bing is introducing a new version webmaster tools, link explorer tools, competitive analysis tools. There will be a blog post on Search Engine Land and Bing Search blog in about 30 minutes.
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8:49:04 am
Audience is happy
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8:49:36 am
It is code named Phoenix not Penguin
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Open Q&A:
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8:50:03 am
Q) Are you using schema.org?
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8:50:20 am
A) We do for entities in the snapshot, it is not all schema but it is a good way
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8:51:40 am
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Q) Photography tags, how do we find it?
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A) When you do tagging in facebook, that is how you do it as a user.
Barry Schwartz:
8:53:03 am
Q) How has the new UI and social effected the load time?
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8:53:25 am
A) In fact, on average we are 20% faster to load the page than before.
Barry Schwartz:
8:56:15 am
FYI, new Bing webmaster tools is live, see link explorer under diagnostics... I am going to play with it. Next session in 45 minutes or so. Well, I am not live blogging it, I am on the iSEO panel...
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8:56:36 am
