Monitoring the online conversation just got easier as both Bing and Google have penned deals with Twitter allowing the search giants to mine Tweets for their search results.

What does this mean for you?  Real time twitter results for Google and Bing search queries are on the horizon.

Vanity searches are about to get a whole lot cooler – or scarier mwa ha ha ha.

Scoops and Devil’s Advocate Here.

For the sake of neutrality and fairness. I will have to put my love for Google aside and discuss the reasons why many are taking the plunge with Bing. This is not all too surprising see that  Nielsen reports shows that it currently holds 10.7% of the search market (to Google’s 65%), but its month-over-month growth is 22%, which is not too shabby if I say so myself.

Microsoft has been dedicating a lot of money to Bing’s advertising and its features, according to Jennifer Van Grove they have paid off in the following ways. Below are her top 5 reason to say Sayonara to Google and pick up Bing:

1. Travel Insights: Bing’s Travel offering is a great fit for two reasons: farecast technology and airfare deals. The farecast technology works to help identify trends in flight prices. Bing also offers top cheat flight deals, record low airline tickets, last minute deals, and weekend or family appropriate options. This is perfect for those “I really need a vacation” moments.

2. Putting Cash Back Into Your Wallet: The Bing Cashback program (formerly Live Search Cashback) has been a rewarding venture for both Microsoft and searchers who benefit from bonus dollars. This program relies on the basic premise  that if you start your product/service quest on Bing, you can benefit when you go on to purchase–some give up tp 30% of the purchase price back which can help towards a new pair of your favorite jeans or those boots you just have to have!

3. Visual Search: this US-only option is one that definately sets Bing apart. The alternative user interface to search lets you conduct your search with not from text, but start with one of their pre-fabricated image galleries. This works well for those “I swear I know that guy from somewhere” kinda moments.

4. BingTweets: This is not just trend topics people! The dual search product combines the power of real-time Twitter search with Bing search results to give you a better perspective as you search. Of course, searches don’t have to be limited to trending topics so search like business as usual!

5. Enhanced Search: Bing’s search result pages have some added features. Two features that improve the search experience are the inline enhanced view options and preview windows for results.

The preview helps a searcher filter out the irrelevant noise quickly. Each search there is a small orange dot next to an individual result. When you mouse over it to view a “More on this page” preview of content, which saves you time not looking at the worng pages.

Another great feature is the “Enchanced view” option. It can be found underneath Wikipedia results and you can click it to view Wikipedia content without leaving Bing!

So there you have it some intriguing reasons to give Google the boot. I love these features, but sorry to say I am not sold yet. However, I can always applaude great innovation and search friendly options any day.

So always keep an open mind socialmedialites!

Ever since its 1998 launch, Google has become something like an online library- A really cool library, that does not smell funny, and doesn’t make you get a membership card or pay late fees. Anything you need or want, Google has. It is so easy to use and find what you are looking for, no other search engine comes even close (not even Bing – I know – I’ve been using Bing for three weeks now and I am ready to throw my computer out the window. I would love to see the number of people who have tried a search on Bing and ended up using Google. )

Any idea how many keywords you type into Google on a daily basis? Why would you – unless you have nothing better to do? My guess is that you search so often, you don’t even realize that you are a Google search term pro. Good enough to recognize the search term if you are shown only a bunch of pictures????

Let’s see just how well you know how to Google – http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/

Once you spent few addictive hours on this game, let us know your high score.

Pam Maloney & Adam Cupples

So Microsoft is Launching “Bing”, a search engine competitor to google. Adam and Pam got togther and came up with a list for Microsoft if they want to win us over. Here is our top 5 list of what “Bing” should do:

1. Pay us – Maybe then will we remember to change our vocabulary? Google doesn’t want us to “Google it” but Bing was designed for us to “Bing it”.  If our wallet/pocket book is getting fatter then we might Bing that. Sure they sort of thought of this already with Bing Cashback – but that’s only if we’re already planning to buy something. We are looking for one step better than Adsense.

2. Voice Activation – What would be better than a search engine we could reason with. If we could talk to Bing and it it would follow our commands – this would be impressive

Bing

3. KISS – We hear that Bing is planning to offer us some sort of relevant pretty picture on a daily basis and I ask – is this pretty picture going to enhance my searching experience? Is the pretty picture going to contribute more relevant results? Then I don’t want it.

4. PDF to HTML – What do you hate more than when searching brings you to a PDF. Let’s just convert it to something faster and less sucky.

5. Tabbed search results – Google sort of does this already, but it can certainly be improved upon. We’d like to see Search Results, News Results, Local Results, Video / Audio Results, Social Network Results, Blog Results, Image Results, Map Results, Reviews, Similar Pages . . . I could probably keep going.

What do you need in a search engine…