Facebook has been focusing on the search technology, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg being quoted in October saying that Search was the most important initiative for the social network company at the time and predicting that in five years time, WhatsApp platform, Instagram photo messaging service and Search will have at least 1 billion people.
Through an earlier partnership with Microsoft, the search results from Facebook’s site would allow the user to find stand-alone web results from Microsoft’s dedicated search engine Bing, an offing that will now be long forgotten.
The social network has now dropped Bing for web results saying that is seeks to focus on helping users find earlier comments and any other information that has previously been shared with them on the social platform.
Facebook has been investing in the search technology to provide users with a more improved and specific way of finding people on the site and now people will be able to find comments and tags. Currently through the Facebook search, a user is able to find people depending on their likes and groups by either searching school classmates or people who like a particular music group or movies and living in a particular area.
It now seems that the investment in search technology has bore fruits for the social network, but will be a big blow to Microsoft’s search engine Bing, as it might drop down in its market share rates giving way to the all successful search engine Google.
According to a recent survey, Google tops the most successful search engine list, representing about 67% of web searches and Microsoft’s Bing standing at only nearly 20%.
How much Bing is expected to loose in market share across the industry can only be seen with time, but being that Microsoft owns about 1% stake of the social network company, an acquisition that valued the software company at about 15 billion dollars, Microsoft may need better plans for their relationship with Facebook.
When Microsoft took up a percentage ownership with Facebook, the partnership included a provision of banner ads from Microsoft on the social platform, but with time Facebook started taking control of its advertising business and stopped using Microsoft’s ads.
Confirming the new move by Facebook to drop Bing for web results, Microsoft said the company understood that the social network was focusing on helping its users find information within its platform but insisted that the two companies would still continue to partner in various other areas.
