Microsoft's plan of developing Bing entails grand plans, such as opening a portion of its entity engine for third party sites to include some of their features on the platform, TechCrunch reported.
In an interview, Microsoft's Bing Experiences group lead Derrick Connell told TechCrunch, "The way we think about entities is that Microsoft wants to enable people to do more." When search was still in its infancy, its focus was geared towards getting people to find more of what they were looking for. However, from finding more, the focus is now on getting users to "know more," Connell said.
In addition to this, Bing also wants its users to be able to do things on the platform. Right from the start, Microsoft had labeled Bing as their "do engine." It has also added more data sources to the platform that enables users to take action. One of these is the ability to book tables through OpenTable. In addition, Bing allows users to opt in to a feature that would integrate their LinkedIn profile so that search results involving individuals will also show data regarding the people included in your professional network, the report said.
Since it's not feasible for any single company to address everything that users want to do online, the concern is now how to link actions with entities. Connell said this can be done by establishing an open ecosystem that would fuel these actions.
He told TechCrunch, "We think a lot about how we can create value for everybody who is participating in this new emerging space. And how can we bring the best set of players to th e table for our users? "For now, this translates to forming partnerships with products like Yelp, OpenTable, TripAdvisors and other firms and then emphasizing the actions that can be done on the search engine, the report said.
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