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<title>Search_Engines RSS : Gourt</title>
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<dc:date>2009-12-14T19:00+33:00
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<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/04/a-note-about-today-s-outage.aspx">
<title>A note about today&#x2019;s outage</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/04/a-note-about-today-s-outage.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Bing.com was down between about 6:30 and 7:00 PM Pacific Time on Dec 3, 2009. During this time, users were either unable to get to the site, or their queries were returning incomplete results page. The cause of the outage was a configuration change during some internal testing that had unfortunate and unintended consequences. As soon as the issue was detected, the change was rolled back, which caused the site to return to normal behavior. Unfortunately the detection and rollback took about half an hour, and during that time users were unable to use bing.com. We strive to maintain a high standard of operational excellence at Bing. We are running a post mortem to find out how our software and processes need to be improved to prevent anything like this from happening again. Satya Nadella Senior Vice President, Online Services Division]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/03/ellen-is-going-bing-for-the-holidays.aspx">
<title>Ellen is going Bing for the holidays</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/03/ellen-is-going-bing-for-the-holidays.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[
What better way to get in the holiday spirit then some fun giveaways and shopping! If you have seen Ellen Degeneres&rsquo;s&nbsp; annual 12 days of Giveaways that is starting today you know that it is sure to bring you holiday cheer and great ideas for holiday gifts.

Each day Ellen will give away some very cool gifts to her studio audience and this year, the Bing team has partnered with the Ellen show to highlight the hottest picks for this year, places where you can get great deals on the items online (sorry&hellip;not for free here), and an easy way&nbsp; to find more great deals for your holiday shopping. Ellen will choose new items every day until December 18th &ndash; check out http://www.bing.com/ellen every day to see the latest. &nbsp;



&nbsp;We hope for those of us not lucky enough to be in Ellen&rsquo;s audience that bringing you deals on her favorite products can be the next best thing. 
&nbsp;Kristin Meldahl &ndash; Bing
&nbsp;Other posts of interest: 
12 Days of Giveaways Tickets Now Available!Are you seeing gold yet?!A little holiday spending money&hellip;a little trivia&hellip;Making a List and Checking it TwiceBing cashback 101
&nbsp;]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/02/bing-maps-connecting-people-places-and-things.aspx">
<title>Bing: Connecting People, Places and Things</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/02/bing-maps-connecting-people-places-and-things.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[When we launched Bing last June, we began a journey that had at its core a simple idea &ndash; that as the web and our usage of it have evolved, keyword search has remained a relatively static experience.&nbsp; It was still valuable for quick, navigational queries where the keyword-to-URL mapping metaphor still makes sense.&nbsp; But so much customer behavior had moved beyond this simple model, and there was some real data that showed there were some unmet customer needs in the search space.
We focused on moving the ball forward in a couple of key areas, most notably helping customers make faster more informed decisions.&nbsp; User data shows clearly that the types of decisions we turn to search for were not being served well today.&nbsp; You have heard us quote the stats before: 25% of clicks were the back button, nearly half of queries require refinement, and increasingly search sessions were longer, multi query efforts focused not on navigation but on the completion of some sort of complex task.
We were proud of the initial release of Bing, but realized that it&rsquo;s only a small down payment on a much longer-term effort.
Over the past couple of months, we have continued shipping new features that help us continue to travel down this path.&nbsp; Today we have some of our technical leadership team together with folks in San Francisco to talk about where we have been and where we are going, and demo some new features launching in Bing today.
The new stuff we are sharing today is really about changing the way we think of using the web to get things done in the physical world.&nbsp; When we looked at what people were doing with search, we saw that people are increasingly trying to use &lsquo;virtual&rsquo; systems to get things done in the &lsquo;physical&rsquo; world (See the chart below). 

Source: Decisions Discussion Board, November 2009, Internal Microsoft Study
That told us a couple of things:&nbsp; first the &lsquo;search&rsquo; experience needs to break outside the little white box we think of as search today.&nbsp; It needs to begin its morph into an assistant that understands what you&rsquo;re trying to do, where you&rsquo;re trying to do it, and how you&rsquo;re trying to talk to it.
Second, it hinted to us that the search of today &ndash; keyword to URL primarily &ndash; is not always the best way to help people get complex decisions made.&nbsp; 
Today we&rsquo;re launching a set of experiences that we think can begin to address these insights.&nbsp; We think we can start to both help people get things done faster and more confidently with search and begin to help us see what is possible when we stop thinking blue links and start thinking end-to-end experiences.
Location, Location, Location
First let&rsquo;s take a look at the new Bing Maps experience.&nbsp; One of the most interesting finds we&rsquo;ve made is that customers say the typical mapping experience feels disconnected from what they&rsquo;re actually trying to do in the real world.&nbsp; Consumers who&rsquo;ve grown up on MapQuest expect maps to show them how to get from point A to point B but they find themselves increasingly relying on mapping services to connect their virtual queries to their physical world.&nbsp; 

Many of the queries we see people making are actually rooted to physical places and decisions &ndash; think of some of the common ones you might do:


Planning a weekend: what is the community saying about this weekend&rsquo;s activities around the house?&nbsp; What can I expect to see at the farmers market?&nbsp; What is the best way to get up to the islands given traffic work on the roads?


Running errands after work: how is traffic?&nbsp; Is the drycleaner open to drop off clothes on the way home?&nbsp; What time does the Mexican food place close and how is their takeout?&nbsp; Is there an alternate route given the Coldplay concert tonight?


When meeting a friend for dinner: &nbsp;where can I park?&nbsp; Is there an ATM nearby?&nbsp; What do foodies &nbsp;say about the restaurant?&nbsp; If our table isn&rsquo;t ready, what about the small pub next door so we can wait in style? 


At Bing, we dug into this disconnect between search in the virtual space (today&rsquo;s standard keyword search) and search in the physical space that folks are literally doing every day.&nbsp;&nbsp; We ended up developing something we&rsquo;re introducing today: a new mapping experience that enables you to elegantly augment the things you&rsquo;re already doing offline in your real life with an online experience.&nbsp; We like to call this &ldquo;spatial search&rdquo;.
We like to call the underlying technology of this experience a physical canvas: our belief is that using a physical canvas can help you accomplish those tasks that you&rsquo;re already doing online but today&rsquo;s search engines are making you do the work to translate the virtual results to physical decisions.
A few cool features that I&rsquo;m most excited about in this new spatial search experience:The first thing this canvas allows us to do is provide a seamless exploration of your physical world.&nbsp; From outer space to the street outside your favorite coffee shop, the new maps view lets you zoom, pan, and move around with ease.&nbsp; 
Our new Streetside imagery features allow you to get down to the street level and walk down the streets to find that good parking lot or figure out exactly where the door to the club is located.&nbsp; Streetside is an excellent example of collaboration with Microsoft Research, Live Labs and the core maps team to build something that isn&rsquo;t just a bunch of pictures stitched together, but an actual physical environment on top of which we can provide an experience that connects to information from across the web.
Which leads us to something I&rsquo;m most excited about: our new Application Gallery.&nbsp; This new platform, which is in limited release today, enables us to provide &ldquo;mash-ins&rdquo; on top of this new physical canvas.&nbsp; The applications that we&rsquo;re shipping today really highlight how information can transform into knowledge when imbued with a spatial dimension.&nbsp; A few of the cool apps we&rsquo;re shipping include:


Twitter: You can now see tweets on the map from their originating location.&nbsp; Get realtime updates about events, breaking news, or even just tweets from your buddies about the quality of coffee at their favorite coffee house.


Local Lens: Here we actually index local blogs from around the US and using the clues in the posts, try and place them physically on a map.&nbsp; You can use it to do things like see community happenings in your neighborhood. It&rsquo;s an entirely new way to consume local crowdsourced information &ndash; something 72% of customers do routinely on the web.


What&rsquo;s Nearby: So you&rsquo;ve found the address of the business meeting you have, but where can you go to sync up your computer before the meeting?&nbsp; With &ldquo;What&rsquo;s Nearby&rdquo; we conduct implicit searches on your behalf to examine the physical canvas and show you types of businesses and services around your final destination.&nbsp;&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t even have to query &ndash; we do it all for you in the background and bring back results sorted into categories so you can easily find the nearest coffee shop with WiFi.


In addition to the new imagery in Streetside and the new platform technology, we have done some work to enable Photosynths generated by the community at large to be integrated into maps.&nbsp; Imagine looking at a map of a city, and being able not only to go from outer space to the street, but being able to experience the location in a new and interesting way. Try this one &ndash; search for the &lsquo;metropolitan museum of art in New York City&rsquo;.&nbsp; Enable Photosynths by clicking on the orange arrow in the bottom of the left pane. Choose the Photosynth map app and then click through to explore the museum in amazing detail.&nbsp; The number and quality of community generated synths will continue to increase giving amazing context and texture to geo-spatial searching.

There are many more so go check them out.&nbsp; We&rsquo;re working hard to make this platform available to more developers in the future.&nbsp; We&rsquo;ve seen the community around mash-ups for location based services exploding and we want to enable a simpler way for these to be developed, shared, and layered without a person having to have their own dedicated hosting platform.&nbsp;
Search on the Go
We want the decision making tools in Bing to be available anywhere you need them.&nbsp; This means a great experience on the mobile phone.&nbsp; But the needs and scenarios and way we interact with the service are obviously different.&nbsp; In a recent study, 70% of mobile search task were completed in one hour and 80% were completed in 1 day. &nbsp;In contrast, only 35% of PC search tasks were completed in one hour and only 40% were completed in 1 day.&nbsp; Even after a week, only 55% of PC search tasks were completed.&nbsp; What did that tell us?&nbsp; We needed to build something better for mobile that responds to the types of searches people are doing on these devices.


Our new Bing app for Windows Mobile is specifically designed for these devices and is tailored for the quick, on-the-go searches that go hand in hand with mobile devices &ndash; we like to think of it as your personal and local search engine.&nbsp; 
We&rsquo;ve worked to build a number of functions that takes search &ldquo;beyond the box&rdquo;:


Type Less, search more: Typing can be tough on small devices.&nbsp; Now you can easily speak your search query into your phone and let Bing do the rest.&nbsp; We&rsquo;ve really worked to improve the quality of recognition and level of understanding we have when you speak &ndash; I always use this first now.


Map Your Way: Quickly access maps, driving directions and traffic information so you can find where you are and get where you are going. The new application also includes an improved auto-locate feature to show your current location. 


Act Locally: Wherever you are, Bing makes it easy to find a nearby business, a new restaurant, or even a local movie theatre with the latest show times.&nbsp;&nbsp; You can quickly and easily bookmark locations and businesses for later reference.


Get Quick Answers:&nbsp; Make decisions fast and on the go with the top web results and instant answers for your pressing questions. Save favorites and recent searches to a list so that you don&rsquo;t have to repeat searches. 



You can get this today at http://discoverbing.com/mobile/ or by going to m.bing.com on your Windows Mobile device.
Turbocharge Your Browser&rsquo;s Search
Last, we want to introduce the new &ldquo;Bing Bar&rdquo; for Internet Explorer and Firefox.&nbsp; You can think of it as a &lsquo;virtual assistant&rsquo; that keeps you informed, keeps you connected, and helps you get things done using search.&nbsp;&nbsp; Go check out the whole bar at http://discoverbing.com/toolbar/ &nbsp;but be sure you don&rsquo;t miss these great new features:


Search Assist &ndash; start typing in the search box and see suggested searches, image suggestions, and your search history. Notice also how as soon as you signal to us that you&rsquo;re going to &lsquo;search&rsquo; we expose the search options (like images, videos, etc) in the bar.


Browse Plus &ndash; sometimes you don&rsquo;t want to search &ndash; you want knowledge and information to come to you.&nbsp; The Bing Bar pulls content from across the web and will even alert you to breaking news when it&rsquo;s happening. You can also tell the bar to watch things for you &ndash; like stocks and sports &ndash; and let it handle the searches for you.


No-Fail Cash Detector: let the Bing Bar help you save money when shopping online.&nbsp; Do a search on a site like craigslist.org and the Bing Bar conducts a &ldquo;search&rdquo; on your behalf, figures out if there are merchants where you can get Bing Cashback on that product, and alerts you by flashing the Cashback icon.


We know, long post, lots of data, lots of new features.&nbsp; We&rsquo;re tired too.&nbsp; But we think there is such tremendous opportunity to do more for customers with search, sometimes we can&rsquo;t help it.&nbsp; We want to wish everyone a safe, healthy and happy holiday season, and we&rsquo;ll be at the grindstone in 2010, so stay tuned.&nbsp; Who knows, maybe we&rsquo;ll surprise you with a couple of last-minute gifts before Father Time comes in to mess up the naughties.&nbsp; 
And remember you can always go to http://www.behindbing.com to stay updated on the latest stuff happening on the product.&nbsp; &nbsp;
Satya NadellaSenior Vice President, Online Services
&nbsp;]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/01/space-the-final-frontier.aspx">
<title>Space, the final frontier</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/01/space-the-final-frontier.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Lately I have been hearing a ton about outer space, space travel, life in space, space hotels&hellip;I think I could go on and on. Anyways, Bing and Microsoft have been doing some interesting partnership in the science /outer space sector. 

The first project that I absolutely love is called &ldquo;Captain Mike&rsquo;s Mars Adventure.&rdquo; Bing has partnered with Seattle&rsquo;s Pacific Science Center (PSC) to bring an online Mars experience to 1st- 8th graders. If your kids are home for the holidays, this is a great activity that looks fun and educational at the same time. The site takes you on a journey with &ldquo;Captain Mike&rdquo; as he prepares for his trip to Mars. As part of the trivia contest, kids are asked questions about Mars to help Captain Mike learn about the planet before his trip.&nbsp; For each correct answer, kids earn a star to add to their Interplanetary Explorer badge &ndash; because all kids should have one. 
After helping prepare Captain Mike for his trip, the kids are able to draw what they think their first day on Mars would look like and submit their drawing for a chance to win a trip to attend the opening of the &ldquo;Facing Mars&rdquo; exhibit at PSC, money for their school to put towards science programs, and some pretty sweet computer gear.&nbsp; 

Unfortunately, this contest is for Washington State students only but no matter where you are from your kids can still play with the site online! The great thing about this site is that it also has activities geared towards teachers. Wahoo! I know my teacher friends are going to love this. For the full details and to get started in your space exploration, make sure you check out the site at: www.pacificsciencecenter.com/marscontest
Microsoft has also highlighted the work they are doing with NASA on their Mars exploration at this year&rsquo;s PDC conference. They are looking to all of us to get involved with their Mars project through a site called Be A Martian. On the site you can help improve Martian maps, take part in research tasks, and assist Mars science teams studying data. They are also offering prizes to software developers that create tools that can help provide access to and help analyze the hundreds of thousands of Mars images for online, classroom and Mars mission team use.
So whether you are a kid in school looking for some extracurricular activities over the holidays, a teacher of science, a developer who loves space and or just someone like me wanting to take a tour of Mars, there is something for you!
Kristin Meldahl &ndash; Rookie Space Explorer
Other posts of interest: 
It Really is Rocket Science]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/01/home-sweet-homepage.aspx">
<title>&#x201C;Home Sweet Homepage&#x201D;</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/12/01/home-sweet-homepage.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Due to the great response to our first homepage photo contest, we are super excited to launch Bing&rsquo;s Home Sweet Homepage photo contest! 
Our first photo contest had more than 10,000 entries and upwards of half a million votes. The winning photo came from Jeremy Somers of Australia and was recently featured in a national television campaign in the United States. 
(Please visit the site to view this media)
Jeremy&rsquo;s win made national news in Australia, was featured on blogs and brought a lot of exposure to his work.
Although we can&rsquo;t make any promises about the amount of exposure and community love that the winner of this photo contest will get, we can say that the winning image will be featured on the Bing homepage in early January. So grab your cameras and get ready to start shooting! 
The theme of this contest is &ldquo;hometown pride.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s an opportunity for you to take photos that demonstrate the beauty of the places you live in and call home. The goal of the daily images on the Bing homepage is to inspire a sense of exploration and delight through a single stunning image that draws you in to the search adventure. So we&rsquo;re looking for photos of your hometowns that do just that; draw people in and make them want to learn more and feel the pride you have for your town.
All of the details and information for the contest can be found on our Bing Facebook page&nbsp;(to go live at 9:00AM). The winner will be decided by a combination of popular votes in the first round, editorial selection before the finals, and by popular vote in the finals. The winner will be announced on December 21, with the winning photo appearing on the homepage on January 6, 2010.
We were so impressed with the last round of submissions we can&rsquo;t wait to see what you capture this time! 
Kristin Meldahl &ndash; Bing
&nbsp;
Other posts of interest: 
It&rsquo;s a Full Moon for Bing Today
Welcome home
The Eye of the Storm &ndash; Jeremy Somers]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/30/online-holiday-shopping-for-the-cyber-monday-bargain-hunter-by-mary-hunt.aspx">
<title>Online holiday shopping for the Cyber Monday bargain hunter by Mary Hunt</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/30/online-holiday-shopping-for-the-cyber-monday-bargain-hunter-by-mary-hunt.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[&nbsp;
I guess you might say I know a thing or two about bargain shopping. I&rsquo;m good at it. So good, I bargain-shopped myself into a horrible mess&mdash;with a life-ruining load of credit-card debt to prove it! The experience of paying back every dime taught me a lot about myself. 
I need limits. I have to set a limit for how much I will spend for Christmas. And then I have to parent myself to make sure I stay within that set amount no matter what.
I am not good in a mall. It&rsquo;s not just the time it takes to get there and find a parking place&mdash;it&rsquo;s the lines and the crowds and so many options that I can reach out and touch. I love the mall as a place to enjoy the sights and sounds of Christmas. But to shop? Not me. I&rsquo;ve found a better way.
Online shopping is for me. I can get online any time day or night, I don&rsquo;t have the drive, parking, pressures or tempting opportunities to careen off my shopping plan. Surprisingly, I am not impulsive when I shop online. I&rsquo;m very cautious, taking all the time I need to think, drink coffee, compare, walk around, calculate and even change my mind. 
The big challenge with online shopping is payment. It&rsquo;s dangerous to use a debit card online, so I use a credit card. But I record each transaction in my check book just as if I&rsquo;d paid with a check. That way, the money is deducted from my balance and set aside so I can pay in full when the credit card statement arrives. 
I&rsquo;ve tried going from one site to another to compare prices and shipping costs, but that&rsquo;s a huge hassle. I&rsquo;d rather let Bing shopping do all the work for me. I use the search feature and Bing shows me a list of retailers with that product, price, plus information on shipping costs. I compare and decide. Then, Bing takes me right to the retailer I choose to complete the purchase. Here&rsquo;s the best part: I get money back on Bing cashback purchases. I am not kidding. Bing&rsquo;s more than 1,000 retailers (including Target, Walmart and Macy&rsquo;s) give me from 3% to 20% of my purchase back in cash, right into my Bing cashback account. 
Right now, Bing customers can earn up to 35% cash back on their purchases from some of the Bing retailers during the Bing cashback Holiday Gold Rush promotion.
Guess what I&rsquo;m doing today?
Mary Hunt - Personal Finance Expert and author of Debt Proof Living

Other posts of interest: 
Are you seeing gold yet?!
A little holiday spending money&hellip;a little trivia&hellip;
Making a List and Checking it Twice
Bing cashback 101]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/30/top-bing-searches-in-2009.aspx">
<title>Top Bing Searches in 2009</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/30/top-bing-searches-in-2009.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Cue Music. Awwww, 2009. It was a year of UFO shaped dirigibles, mom jeans on pop stars, real housewives, a new president, and a new decision engine. Oh and there may have been something about Vampires too, we weren&rsquo;t really paying attention. Yes, it was quite a year and what better way to reminisce then by taking a trip down memory lane with a look back at what topped the list of Bing searches. If you&rsquo;re curious how we determined the top searches, we analyzed billions of search queries and developed the list based on searches made with Bing.
Not surprisingly, we saw a lot of folks using Bing for quick access to favorite sites like Facebook, MSN, Youtube and Craigslist. We also saw a lot of more complex searches such as product related queries in which people used Bing to help decide what MP3 player to buy and travel searches to help find the best deals on a tropical vacation. 
And also not surprising were the headlines of the year. So without further ado, let&rsquo;s do this. 

Top Bing Trending Topics:
1) Michael Jackson
2) Twitter
3) Swine Flu
4) Stock Market
5) Farrah Fawcett
6) Patrick Swayze
7) Cash for Clunkers
8) Jon and Kate Gosselin
9) Billy Mays
10) Jaycee Dugard
Are there any hot topics you think should have made the list? Do you think you know the who&rsquo;s who of Hollywood? If this sounds like you, look for the launch of Bing&rsquo;s &ldquo;Most Popular Searches of 2009&rdquo; Facebook quiz to test your relevance I.Q., challenge your friends and to see who topped off the most searched female and male celebrities, movies, TV shows and much more.&nbsp; 
To hold you over, here&rsquo;s a sneak peek at the top three celebrities searched using Bing for 2009. Megan Fox from the Transformers saga came in third on our list who was beat by our second place favorite Vampire, Robert Pattinson. And the number one searched person this year&hellip;. drum roll please&hellip; 

That&rsquo;s right folks, Perez Hilton, &ldquo;Hollywood&rsquo;s most hated website&rdquo; owner topped our list of most searched people this year on Bing. 
Now it&rsquo;s your turn, we want to know what YOU think was all the rage this year in search. So fan Bing on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to get more details and to be notified on when you can take the quiz. 
Here&rsquo;s to a very memorable 2009!
Danielle Tiedt - General Manager, Bing]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/27/bing-says-g-day-mate-from-sydney-australia.aspx">
<title>Bing says G&#x2019;day Mate from Sydney Australia!</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/27/bing-says-g-day-mate-from-sydney-australia.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Some folks take coals to Newcastle &ndash; I take beer bottle openers to Australia. Though I&rsquo;m officially on vacation, we Bing folks never really rest, especially when there&rsquo;s an opportunity to spread Bing love via beer. Constant vigilance is our watchword!
So the place I got to share the Bing love was Silicon Beach drinks&nbsp;at the Grace Hotel in Sydney. While others spent their Friday-after-Thanksgiving bloated from turkey and football overdoses, I got to hang out with about&nbsp;50-60&nbsp;folks from IT, start-up starters, programmers, designers, and general populace at the 77Bar on the Mezzanine level.&nbsp;&nbsp; The chats were amazing...Australian startup culture is very different than in the United States - the state of venture capital and angel funding is different, and the government plays a unique role.&nbsp; 
Here's a&nbsp;pic as the party was getting started - later on our section of the&nbsp;bar was hard to move around in.

And lest folks in Silicon Valley think we forget all about them when we go to Silicon Beach, the Techcrunch50 Startup t-shirt I sported was GlideHealth a startup that helps doctors manage patient information from their mobile phones. Made sense when going to a country where &ldquo;country doctor&rdquo; could mean flying or helicoptering into the bush to find your patients.



Besides the beer bottle openers, I left ouf piles of Bing stickers - when we closed down for the&nbsp;night&nbsp;I realized people weren't fooling around with putting them on their laptops - they were WEARING them out to the pubs they hit next!&nbsp;&nbsp;The fellow second from the right in white shirt is Bart Jellema, the original organizer of these events. He noted with pride (and others confirmed) there are events Sydney tech folks can go to pretty much any day of the week - their scene is really picking up.

&nbsp;Big thanks to everyone for making the event a success!
Betsy Aoki, Senior Program Manager, Bing]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/27/are-you-seeing-gold-yet.aspx">
<title>Are you seeing gold yet?!</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/27/are-you-seeing-gold-yet.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Are you sitting down? Do you have your coffee in hand? Well! Let the holiday shopping begin! 
Go to www.bing.com/cashback to start your holiday shopping off right. Below is a list of the participating merchants in this year&rsquo;s Bing cashback Holiday Gold Rush promotion, which kicks off today. 





AT&amp;T/MEC
35%


Barnes &amp; Noble.com
14%


Best Buy
10%


Buy.com
5%


Circuit City
12.2% (search) and 8% (Bing shopping)*


Dell
20%


drugstore.com
20%


eBags
30%


eBay
10%


Endless.com
20%


Foot Locker/eastbay
25%


Home Depot
8%


HP
20%


Kohl's
10%


Lenovo
20%


Macy's
10%


Overstock.com
15%


Sears
13%


Sephora
20%


Shoebuy
20%


The Gap
10%


TigerDirect
12.2% (search) and 8% (Bing shopping)*


T-Mobile
35%


Walmart
15%





Holiday shopping without the lines&hellip;getting money back&hellip;can&rsquo;t get much better than this! 
Happy shopping, 
Kelly Scott &ndash; Bing shopping
*These merchants have two Bing cashback percentages. The percentage you receive is determined by how you enter the Bing cashback experience &ndash; through searching for products on Bing.com or going directly to the store on Bing shopping. 
Other posts of interest: 
Making a List and checking it Twice
Mark your calendars&hellip;A Gold Rush is coming]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/25/the-12th-man-really-came-to-play-last-week.aspx">
<title>The 12th Man really came to play last week!</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/25/the-12th-man-really-came-to-play-last-week.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Wow! We had an amazing response for last week&rsquo;s #FTF Seahawks practice jersey giveaway. Thank you to everyone who took the time to play. 
We had some pretty imaginative search results sent to us so picking out the winners was very hard! We wanted to pick a group of winners that were different yet told a well rounded story of the Seattle Seahawks. Some serious, some funny but all together it is what makes the Seattle Seahawks and their fans so great.





Jersey


Winner


Search Term




Matt Hasselbeck #8


larao68 @bing #FTF seahawks playoff mustache http://www.bing.com/search?q=seahawks+playoff+mustache&amp;FORM=BWFD // Red number 8 plz


Seahawks playoff mustache




Julius Jones #22


frogger097 @bing - http://www.bing.com/search?q=Seattle+seahawk+tailgating+food&amp;FORM=BWFD #FTF I'd love Jones or Burleson! Go Hawks! 12th Man!


Seattle Seahawk tailgating food




Lofa Tatupu #51


Hawaii2333 @bing - http://www.bing.com/search?q=Seattle+Seahawks+Giving+Back+to+Community&amp;go=&amp;form=QBRE&amp;qs=n #FTF &amp; 1st choice would be #51 Thanks!


Seattle Seahawks Giving Back to Community




Nate Burleson #81


ralphdweck @bing #FTF http://www.bing.com/search?q=the+seattle+seahawks+all-time+records&amp;go=&amp;form=QBRE&amp;qs=n ... hope i can get the burleson 81


the Seattle Seahawks all-time records




T.J. Houshmandzadeh #84


pdxphotogeek @bing #ftf loudest fans in the nfl? Hint - 12th man http://www.bing.com/search?q=loudest+stadium+nfl&amp;go=&amp;form=QBRE&amp;qs=n


Loudest Stadium NFL





If you won, please DM us on twitter your shirt size for your Bing T-Shirt as well as your mailing address and we will get them in the mail to you as soon as possible. 
Thanks again to everyone who played and to the Seattle Seahawks for giving us their jerseys! 
&nbsp;
We hope you all have a great holiday! 
Kristin Meldahl &ndash; Bing
*Please note: we will be taking a break from #FTF this week for the holidays 
&nbsp;
Other posts of interest:
Friday&rsquo;s Without Stefan and Free NFL Practice Jersey Friday
Kicking off Free T-Shirt Friday (rules and regulations)]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/25/bing-making-someone-s-travel-day-that-much-easier.aspx">
<title>Bing &#x2013; Making someone&#x2019;s travel day that much easier</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/25/bing-making-someone-s-travel-day-that-much-easier.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[If you happen to have been at an airport today (which is more than likely) and if you were flying in or out of Seattle or Boston you might have seen some of our fellow Bing team members out there giving people a hand with their luggage&hellip;.and when I say hand I don&rsquo;t mean helping them carry their luggage to the check-in counter...what I mean is the Bing team was handing out $15 pre-loaded Mastercards to help with your baggage fees or a little treat at the airport for your trip.

&nbsp;
For more details on this and for some great tips on how to make traveling over the holidays easier make sure you read the Bing travel blog.
Happy Travels,
Kristin Meldahl&nbsp; - Bing]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/25/a-little-holiday-spending-money-a-little-trivia.aspx">
<title>A little holiday spending money&#x2026;a little trivia&#x2026;</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/25/a-little-holiday-spending-money-a-little-trivia.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Time is of the essence when it comes to holiday shopping and each year my &ldquo;to buy for&rdquo; list keeps getting longer and longer&hellip;one thing that could help me is a little extra holiday spending money. Luckily, starting Friday the Bing cashback team will be hosting the Bing cashback Holiday Trivia sweepstakes from the @bingcashback twitter handle where you can enter to win some serious spending money! 
For twelve days Bing cashback will post a question via twitter that you will have one hour to search the internet for the right answer. All you need to do is tweet your answer to @bingcashback and include #Bingholiday for the chance to win a $250 Master Card cash card. On the twelfth day you can play for a chance to win a $500 Master Card cash card.*
So if you are one of those trivia types and could use some extra cash this holiday season follow the Bing cashback team on twitter and facebook starting Friday, November 27 through December 8, 2009. 
Don&rsquo;t forget&hellip;the Bing cashback holiday Gold Rush starts Friday as well!
Good luck and happy holiday shopping, 
Kristin Meldahl &ndash; Bing
*No purchase necessary. Open only to legal residents of the 50 US and DC 18+.
Other posts of interest: 
Mark your calendars&hellip;A Gold Rush is coming
Making a List and Checking it Twice

MICROSOFT BING CASHBACK HOLIDAY TRIVIA SWEEPSTAKES
OFFICIAL RULES
COMMON TERMS USED IN THESE RULES:

These are the official rules that govern how the Microsoft Bing cashback Holiday Trivia Sweepstakes promotion will operate (&ldquo;Sweepstakes&rdquo;).
In these rules, &ldquo;we,&rdquo; &ldquo;our,&rdquo; and &ldquo;us&rdquo; refer to Microsoft Corporation, the sponsor of this Sweepstakes. &ldquo;You&rdquo; refers to an eligible Sweepstakes entrant.
WHAT ARE THE START AND END DATES? 

This Sweepstakes starts at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time (PT) on Nov. 27, 2009, and ends at 11:59 p.m. PT on Dec. 8, 2009 (&ldquo;Entry Period&rdquo;) and consists of 12 separate Daily Prize Periods. For the purposes of this Sweepstakes, each Daily Prize Period will start at 12:01 a.m. PT and end at 11:59 p.m. PT. 
CAN I ENTER?

You are eligible to enter this Sweepstakes if you meet the following requirements at time entry:

&middot; You are a legal resident of the 50 United States and District of Columbia, and are 18 years of age or older; and
&middot; You are NOT an employee of Microsoft Corporation or an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary; and
&middot; You are NOT involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Sweepstakes; and
&middot; You are NOT an immediate family (parent, sibling, spouse, child) or household member of a Microsoft employee, an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary, or a person involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Sweepstakes.
This Sweepstakes is void outside the geographic area described above and wherever else prohibited by law. 

At one randomly determined time during each Daily Prize Period, a Bing cashback related question will be posted via the Bing Cashback Twitter feed @bingcashback. To submit an eligible entry, you must respond via a &ldquo;tweet&rdquo; with the correct answer within 60 minutes from when the question was posted. All answers may be found by searching online at http://www.bing.com/shopping
The tweet should include the following three elements: &ldquo;#Bingholiday&rdquo; &ldquo;@bingcashback&rdquo; and &ldquo;[correct answer here]&rdquo; 
We will only accept one (1) entry per person per Daily Prize Period. Non-winning entries will not be rolled over into subsequent Daily Prize Periods; you must enter each drawing separately. 

We are not responsible for entries that we do not receive for any reason, or for entries that we receive but are not decipherable for any reason. 
We will automatically disqualify:
&middot; Any incomplete or illegible entry; and
&middot; Any entries that we receive from you that are in excess of the entry limit described above.
Following the end of each Daily Prize Period one (1) winner will be randomly selected from among all eligible entries received to win a prize as follows: 
Daily Prize (Day 1 - 11): A $250 Master Card cash card
Grand Prize (Day 12): A $500 Master Card cash card. 
Limit one prize per person during the Entry Period. The total Approximate Retail Value (ARV) of all prizes: $3,250 

If you are a potential winner, we will notify you by sending a direct message to you via Twitter to request your e-mail address, phone number, and mailing address (if any) within seven (7) days following winner selection. If the notification that we send is returned as undeliverable, or you are otherwise unreachable for any reason, we may award to a runner-up.

If there is a dispute as to who is the potential winner, we will consider the potential winner to be the authorized account holder of the Twitter handle used to enter the Sweepstakes. If you are a potential winner, we may require you to sign an Affidavit of Eligibility, Liability/Publicity Release and a W-9 tax form or W-8 BEN tax form within 10 days of notification. If you are a potential winner and you are 18 or older, but are considered a minor in your place of legal residence, we may require your parent or legal guardian to sign all required forms on your behalf. If you do not complete the required forms as instructed and/or return the required forms within the time period listed on the winner notification message, we may disqualify you and select a runner-up.
If you are confirmed as a winner of this Sweepstakes: 

You may not exchange your prize for cash or any other merchandise or services. However, if for any reason an advertised prize is unavailable, we reserve the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value; and


You may not designate someone else as the winner. If you are unable or unwilling to accept your prize, we may award it to a runner up; and


If you accept a prize, you will be solely responsible for all applicable taxes related to accepting the prize; and


If you are otherwise eligible for this Sweepstakes, but are considered a minor in your place of residence, we may award the prize to your parent/legal guardian on your behalf; and


Unless otherwise noted, all prizes are subject to their manufacturer&rsquo;s warranty and / or terms and conditions. 

By entering this Sweepstakes you agree: 
&middot; To abide by these Official Rules; and
&middot; To release and hold harmless Microsoft and its respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, employees and agents from any and all liability or any injury, loss or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with this Sweepstakes, or any prize won; and
&middot; That Microsoft&rsquo;s decisions will be final and binding on all matters related to this Sweepstakes; and

&middot; That, by accepting a prize, Microsoft may use of your proper name and state of residence online and in print, or in any other media, in connection with this Sweepstakes, without payment or compensation to you, except where prohibited by law.

WHAT LAWS GOVERN THE WAY THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS EXECUTED AND ADMINISTRATED?

This Sweepstakes will be governed by the laws of the State of Washington, and you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the courts of the State of Washington for any disputes arising out of this Sweepstakes.

If someone cheats, or a virus, bug, catastrophic event, or any other unforeseen or unexpected event that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled, (also referred to as force majeure) affects the fairness and / or integrity of this Sweepstakes, we reserve the right to cancel, change or suspend this Sweepstakes. This right is reserved whether the event is due to human or technical error. If a solution cannot be found to restore the integrity of the Sweepstakes, we reserve the right to select winners from among all eligible entries received before we had to cancel, change or suspend the Sweepstakes. 
If you attempt to compromise the integrity or the legitimate operation of this Sweepstakes by hacking or by cheating or committing fraud in ANY way, we may seek damages from you to the fullest extent permitted by law. Further, we may ban you from participating in any of our future Sweepstakes, so please play fairly.

HOW CAN I FIND OUT WHO WON?
We will post the names of winners who received a prize worth $25.00 or more online at http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/. This list will remain posted one month after Dec. 8, 2009.
WHO IS SPONSORING THIS SWEEPSTAKESSWEEPSTAKES?
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/24/bing-for-mobile-availability-continues-to-grow.aspx">
<title>Bing&#x2122; for mobile availability continues to grow</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/24/bing-for-mobile-availability-continues-to-grow.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[Mobile momentum continues and this is a big one: the new Bing application is now available for BlackBerry&trade; Curve devices in the US.

When you buy a new BlackBerry Curve 2 (8530) from Verizon, you&rsquo;ll get the Bing app automatically. If you have another type of Curve, head over to m.bing.com/download with your phone to download the app. 

People were excited about the Bing app on BlackBerry Storm and we can&rsquo;t wait to hear from you about having Bing on your Curve.
Here&rsquo;s the full list of BlackBerry Smartphones that can now get the Bing app:
&bull; Curve 
&bull; Curve 2 
&bull; Curve World Edition
&bull; Storm 
&bull; Storm 2
Justin Jed &ndash; Bing for Mobile
Other posts of interest: 
Bing for mobile now live at m.bing.com
Mobile Madness Round 2&hellip; Then and Now
Use Your Voice to Text, Call and Search with Bing
Mobile Madness is Upon Us
&nbsp;]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/21/committed-to-comprehensive-results.aspx">
<title>Committed to Comprehensive Results</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/21/committed-to-comprehensive-results.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[There&rsquo;s been some buzz today based on a post by Nicholas D. Kristof at the New York Times suggesting that Bing filters results for searches conducted outside of the People&rsquo;s Republic of China (PRC) using Simplified Chinese characters for their query. 
As Mr. Kristof reported over the summer, we did fix a bug in web search that addressed this issue. There are some queries that provide very balanced web results, for example 六四 天安门 (June 4th Tiananmen). We recognize that we can continue to improve our relevancy and comprehensiveness in these web results and we will.
In addition, today&rsquo;s investigations uncovered the fact that our image search is not functioning properly for queries entered using Simplified Chinese characters outside of the PRC. We have identified the bug and are at work on the fix. We expect to have this done before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Bing&rsquo;s intent for these types of queries is to provide relevant and comprehensive results for our customers.
We appreciate the dialog that Mr. Kristof has kicked off. Community feedback and input is incredibly important to Bing &ndash; it helps us do better and sometimes alerts us to things we can take immediate action to fix as we continue to improve.
Adam Sohn &ndash; Senior Director, Bing]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/20/mark-your-calendars-a-gold-rush-is-coming.aspx">
<title>Mark your calendars&#x2026;A Gold Rush is coming</title>
<link>http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/20/mark-your-calendars-a-gold-rush-is-coming.aspx</link>
<description><![CDATA[I have never been one to wake up the morning after Thanksgiving to go and wait in a line at the mall for those crazy holiday shopping deals. As much as I have thought about it, the idea of sitting outside at 2AM in the freezing cold still trying to wake up from my Thanksgiving dinner food coma never really sounded that pleasing. Well things have certainly changed. Now I can take advantage of some great holiday savings right from the comfort of my very own home. 
Starting on November 27, Bing cashback will be offering increased discounts at a select number of merchants.&nbsp; There will be some pretty attractive savings at retailers like Macy&rsquo;s, Home Depot, Dell, and many more. 
So Friday morning after you have had your first of many leftover thanksgiving sandwiches, don&rsquo;t worry about getting ready to go to the mall, just grab a laptop, a cup of coffee, your wallet, and a seat on your favorite couch and start your holiday shopping!
Make sure you are following the Bing cashback team on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest details.
Kristin Meldahl &ndash; The eager holiday shopper
Other posts of interest: 
Making a List and Checking it Twice
Bing cashback 101
&nbsp;]]></description>
</item>

</rdf:RDF>