We’ve just discovered a new Windows 7 ad by Microsoft featuring a little girl, Kelly, talking up the new OS. In the ad, Kelly finds Windows 7 reviews on her dad’s Sony Vaio notebook and proceeds to make a slideshow about the awesome new operating system, complete with a unicorn, a kitten, and a piggy with huge ears. If you look closely, the slideshow displays four quotes from positive Windows 7 reviews (Gizmodo, Maximum PC, CNet, and ZDNet) all to the tune of Europe’s The Final Countdown.. The ad concludes with Kelly saying, “I’m a PC and more happy is coming.”

Perhaps that last part is referring to the Zune HD and a the much-anticipated Windows Mobile OS?

Check out the ad after the break!

With Windows 7, Microsoft has delivered on the “product” end of things. Now it’s time to market the great new product. Microsoft needs to change consumers’ (undeservedly) negative perception of Windows Vista with Windows 7. This ad is a great step in that direction. In fact, this is an example of a perfect advertisement – one that doesn’t bash the competition (cough, Apple) but endears the company in the ad. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more of these “happy,” ads.

Back in 2008, Microsoft announced Office Web Applications – the web-based version of its ever-popular productivity suite – Microsoft Office. We’ve come across more details recently, with the beta release of Office 2010: the online suite will be made up of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, will be capable of synchronizing with the desktop, will be platform and browser-independent, but will contain less features than the desktop versions of those programs. That should not be an issue, however, since most Office users use very few features in Office.

The suite will be available to everyone for free via Windows Live and to corporate users through different distribution channels. Since the announcement, such questions as “How would this affect Google Docs/Apps and the Zoho office suite?” have been widely discussed topics. Let’s take a pragmatic look at what we should really expect from Office Web Applications.

Office Web Applications vs. Google Docs/Apps

Microsoft Office is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, with a market share somewhere between 80-90 percent in the productivity software space. Google has been hard at work chipping away at those numbers, although we don’t have exact market share figures.

From a product perspective, not many people know about Google Docs. Before you write your emails, I understand that tech fans the world over would disagree. The reality is, however, that the mainstream consumer has no idea Google is a whole lot more than a search engine. Whenever I do consulting work and introduce organizations to Google Apps, they are amazed that Google has such awesome services with its Apps/Docs. And here is where Microsoft has the upper hand: from a brand name recognition standpoint alone, consumers are much more familiar with Microsoft Office than they are with Google Docs. This can be attributed to a generational factor in perception: Office has simply been around longer and Microsoft has had more time than Google to let people know about it, as well as for the people to get to know (and use) Office. Google understands this and has recently begun aggressively advertising Google Apps – all in an attempt to convert a few more users to the product before the other leg of the 800 pound gorilla makes its landing (the general availability of Office Web Apps, of course).

In that regard, the Office brand name will carry over to Office Web Applications in being an instantly-recognizable player in the productivity software space, leading consumers to try it out at a rate that – in my opinion – will be higher than the adoption rate of Google Docs. This is a perfect example of leveraging the immense power of an already-existing product (Office on the desktop) and carrying it over to the web – a move that should be commended. At a time when everything seems to be moving to the web, Microsoft’s software plus services approach looks like a surefire method to fuse the social collaboration features of web apps with the full-featured functionality of desktop programs.

Unfortunately for Google Docs and Zoho, brand name familiarity will drive many current Microsoft Office users to try Microsoft’s Office web suite. Something tells me that if one percent of the enourmous Microsoft Office user base would sign up for Office Web Applications, that number would trump the amount of users Google Docs and Zoho have, combined. And that’s not taking into account that Office Web Apps will be available to anyone using a Hotmail/Live email account (which trumps the amount of Gmail accounts).

Interface

Office 2007  as well as Office 2010 users will feel right at home using Office Web Applications, since the web-based version of Office will employ the Ribbon UI that has come to define the desktop software package. After using Office 2007 and a beta version of Office 2010 on the desktop, the Ribbon is a far-superior interface element than traditional menu-based layouts. This is yet another reason for users to turn to Microsoft’s web-based solution instead of those by Google or Zoho.

Cost

Microsoft has announced that it will initially provide the web-based suite free of charge to all users via Windows Live (rather than Office Live, which is being discontinued and rolled into Windows Live). That falls in line with what the competition is doing: Google Docs and personal versions of Zoho apps are also free. For organizations that require more than 50 users, Google charges a per-user fee for Apps; Zoho charges for corporate use as well.

Companies will have the ability to use Office Web Applications in two ways:

1. Host the Office Web Apps on-site
2. Access a hosted version as part of their Microsoft Online Services (MOS) subscription

That’s a solid strategy for Microsoft that makes a clear split between home/non-corp users and corporations, similar to Google Docs and Google Apps. Will organizations pick the lower-priced Google Apps over the more expensive Microsoft hosted solution? Common sense says “yes.” But it still remains to be seen.

Concluding Thoughts

There is no question that Office Web Applications will prove to be a strong competitor to Google Docs, Google Apps, and Zoho apps. As such, Office Web Apps will compete for two markets – the home (non-corporate) user as well as the business (small, medium, enterprise). With a very well-known brand name that has come to define the world of productivity software, Microsoft is sure to lure many new users to its web-based version of the suite. And if Zoho and Google apply each apply their marketing prowess, they can ride off the coattails of Microsoft moving Office to the web.

One important question remains: what’s the long-term strategy of Office on the web? Will Microsoft eventually charge all users to use the product, introduce a “fremium” model, or use the web version to entice consumers to purchase the desktop version of the software? In the long term, this blogger thinks that it’s more likely to be the former rather than the latter.

Microsoft posted under-construction photos of its new retail stores to its Twitter account late Friday night. The shots don’t reveal any details about the interior of the stores, but we have already received some information on that front.  The company says it is hiring for both locations (Scottsdale, AZ and Mission Viejo, CA). As we discussed on yesterday’s TNR Weekly Recap, we believe that Microsoft is gearing up to release its own PC hardware to be sold at these stores. Listen to the show to find out why (we will publish it shortly).

Scottsdale, AZ:

Microsoft Store in Scottsdale, AZ

Mission Viejo, CA

Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo, CA

Democratic lawmakers are calling for states to ban texting and emailing while driving. The movement comes in light of recent studies that show the practice is more dangerous than drunk driving.

Since 2005, texting has grown eleven-fold – from 10 billion to 110 billion text messages sent per month in December of 2008, according to CTIA – the cellular phone industry’s trade group. As such, an increase in overall use of text messaging would naturally lead to an increase of doing so in the car. A recent study from Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that when drivers of heavy trucks texted, their collision risk increased by 23 times. Dialing a cell phone and using or reaching for an electronic device increased risk of collision about six times in cars and trucks. The researchers said the risks of texting generally applied to all drivers, not just truckers. A separate study by Car and Driver magazine found that texting and driving is more dangerous than drunken driving.

To date, 14 states as well as the District of Colombia have passed laws banning text messaging while conducting a vehicle. States that don’t implement the proposed laws would face highway funding cuts of around 25 percent. The legislation would be patterned after the way Congress required states to adopt a national drunken driving ban. However, some don’t think that the proposed laws would be effective enough.

Steve Largent, a former Oklahoma congressman who leads CTIA — The Wireless Association, said his organization supports “state legislative remedies to solve this issue. But simply passing a law will not change behavior. We also need to educate new and experienced drivers on the dangers of taking their eyes off the road and hands off the wheel.” The Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety agencies, said it does not doubt the dangers of texting and driving but does not support a ban because it would be difficult to enforce: “Highway safety laws are only effective if they can be enforced and if the public believes they will be ticketed for not complying. To date, that has not been the case with many cell phone restrictions,” said Vernon Betkey, the highway safety association’s chairman.

This all looks to be a problem that should be solved by superior technology rather than increased lawmaking. The market should drive the tech industry to develop and improve in-car speech recognition and synthesis systems that would read incoming text messages or emails, and allow the driver to dictate a response to a message – all without having to look at the cellular device. Microsoft’s SYNC system (TNR coverage) is the most advanced in the marketplace in having both features, although it still needs to be improved in the areas of accuracy. Only available in Ford products (Ford, Lincoln, Mercury), the system also needs to become more widely available.

(via Yahoo! News)

This post is a part of the Yahoo! gets Microsoftified series – where we cover the facts, points of view, and details of the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal. To see all posts of the series, click here. More posts are coming soon!

This morning, Yahoo and Microsoft announced a 10-year search deal that will see the two companies join forces to take on Google. Basically, Microsoft’s technology will power Yahoo’s search results, while Yahoo will be charged with selling ads for both companies’ search sites. Here are the facts:

Basics:

• Yahoo is outsourcing search on its web properties to Microsoft
• Microsoft is providing the technology (Bing), while Yahoo will deliver the worldwide sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers
• Ad sales will be handled by Microsoft’s AdCenter sales tool
• Microsoft is getting the reach (scale) that Yahoo has with its web properties while Yahoo is getting superior technology and the ability to save by not having a dedicated search team
• The companies will share resources and combine engineering efforts
• Combined, the two companies make up 30% of the search market, compared to Google – which still controls more than twice that amount
• The deal is for a time period of 10 years

Financials:

• There is no upfront payment of any kind exchanging hands (as previous negotiations would contradict)
• The deal will increase Yahoo’s profitability (less expensive search). It will not have an affect on revenue
• Once fully in place, Yahoo expects the deal to boost its annual operating income by about $500 million, reduce capital expenditures by $200 million, and increase operating cash flow roughly by $275 million
• Majority of search advertising revenue generated on Yahoo will be awarded to the company. Microsoft has also offered revenue guarantees to Yahoo
• As of market close on Wednesday, July 29, 2009, the stock price of each company is as follows:
• Yahoo: -2.08 points (-12.09%). $15.14 per share
• Microsoft: +0.33 points (+1.41%). $23.80 per share

Privacy Concerns

• Aspiring to stave off privacy concerns, the two companies noted that “the agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies.”

Other notes

• The deal must still pass regulatory requirements
• Two years after regulatory approval, the companies expect to have the partnership up and running in full force
• The collaboration is strictly limited to search, with both companies noting that “The agreement does not cover each company’s Web properties and products, e-mail, instant messaging, display advertising, or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses,” they said. “In those areas, the companies will continue to compete vigorously.”

We all love Apple. Well, most of us do. The last few years, especially since the Vista launch, modern media has pushed on us the virtues of owning a Mac. Most of the top names in the tech blogosphere use Macs, and support almost all of Apple’s products. Leo Laporte, Ryan Block, and Peter Rojas are all self-admitted Macs (though they all come clean to using PCs). The “in” thing to do in the industry is to be a Mac. While this may put Apple in a position to become the leader in the PC industry, there are several reasons as to why Apple doesn’t want to and cannot do so.

Apple has long been the underdog of the PC industry. Right before Steve Jobs’ return as iCEO, we can see that this was for a good reason. Apple’s product line-up was a mess and the company was suffering through its worst years ever. Apple started out as a company that was all about the ability to “Think Different.” With Jobs’ return to Apple, this concept was embraced again, and the company started producing computers for the people. The original iMac and iBook are perfect examples: a colored and translucent computer was all about style and appealed to a younger audience. On the other hand, Windows PCs of the day were still considered the computers of choice amongst the tech elite and the business world.

Cut to today

Apple’s lineup of computers is amazing, to say the least. An Apple computer represents the latest and greatest in hardware: processors, graphics cards, RAM, connectivity technology, and enclosure engineering are all top-notch. The Mac lineup caters to both personal and business users and does so with extreme precision. Yet Apple is still the underdog of the personal computer market, having approximately 10% of U.S. market share. And this is exactly where the company needs to and wants to be, give or take a few percentage points.

One of Apple’s greatest strengths is its ability to manufacture both the software and the hardware that combine to make an amazing piece of machinery which outperforms all competition. But this level of performance comes at a price: the company’s second-greatest strength is the margin it enjoys. The last bevy of financial reports have pegged profit margin in the area of 30% or higher. Compared to rival companies such as Dell and HP, that’s an astounding number! It has turned Apple into a company that’s not only debt-free, but one that also enjoys tens of billion of dollars in the bank (and other short-term investments). But why can Apple charge so much more for its computers while other companies try so hard to earn even a 5 percent margin?

How can Apple get away with such a high margin?

1. The single most important reason is that Apple is a top-tier premium brand. Top-tier premium brands, by definition, are limited to the very few that can afford its products. If Apple were to gain a larger market share, it would do so by expanding down-market and diluting itself into something that doesn’t occupy a top-tier premium position. If this were to happen, Apple would not bring home as much money per item.

2. OS X is wonderful software, and the Mac is a great computer because of it. The sheer joy of using the two is thrilling: they just work. But why is that so? How can Apple’s product work in such great harmony while other computers don’t? It’s because of the limited product portfolio that Apple carries, a lineup with very well-known specs. This allows Apple to engineer OS X in a way that works best with the hardware it ships. Contrast that with Microsoft’s Windows, which has to support millions of components and hardware devices, all while not really being sure which combination of processor, motherboard, and graphics card will be used. Yet Apple’s limited hardware carries a price not denominated in dollars: there are some people whose needs are not fulfilled by the limited amount of products that Apple makes available. There are those that would like a netbook, or a smaller headless tower with the expandability of a Mac Pro. Such wants are simply not fulfilled by Apple. If the company were to fill every single void in its computer line-up, there would be a lot more hardware that Mac engineers would have to support.

As successful as it is, Apple still has to fight some uphill battles!

By having such a small market share, Apple is able to make only those products that its loyal customer base demands. In effect, this means that unless Apple finds a strong business case (iPhone, iPod, Apple TV) for certain products, they are simply not on the radar for the company. Many Windows PCs come in form factors and specs that simply do not exist in the Macintosh line-up (Tablet PC, anyone?). Many different manufactures produce thousands of different hardware combinations to make the Windows PC ecosystem as rich and abundant as it is. And while Apple seems like it is totally in control of its fate, the company does have its work cut out for it.

Price

Windows laptops are cheap; ridiculously cheap. A comparably spec’ed machine to the Macintosh line, while not as sexy, can range from $300 to $1000 less expensive. The company does not build OS X to support certain peripherals. Instead, peripheral vendors make supporting software (drivers) for OS X. This awards Apple the right to not have to go out of its way to ensure that every possible combination of peripherals work with its operating system. Microsoft, with its 90 percent market share, tried this once and the net result was Windows Vista, pre Service Pack 1. We all saw how that worked out for them (deservedly or not).

Compatibility is still an issue

On top of that, PCs are the industry standard and run many programs that OS X can’t natively. Many engineering and business applications only run on Windows. Sure there is BootCamp and various virtualization applications. But in my experience, most people prefer to have the same OS at home as they do at work.

Windows 7

Apple has dissed Windows 7 during WWDC 2009 – labeling it as Vista with a different name. That’s a great facade in and of itself. Internally, however, Apple must realize that the new Microsoft OS poses a threat to Mac sales. Many in the industry have cited Windows 7 as the answer to the problems that plagued Vista. Personally, I use Windows 7 on my daily machine and I can attest that this is an OS everyone will want to use. I feel that it combines the ease-of-use in OS X with the software compatibility (games!) that we have come to know and love from Microsoft. If Windows users are satisfied by Windows 7, it doesn’t give people a reason to switch to a Mac.

Still the underdog

Apple’s PR campaign has been an all-out attack on Microsoft. The “Get a Mac” ad series is very direct, calling the Windows world “stuffy,” filled with problems and vulnerabilities, and with people whose top priority is number crunching. Apple is able to do this because it is the underdog in the personal computer space. It is the David that everyone cheers for, versus Microsoft (the Goliath). Could you imagine if Microsoft took the same approach in marketing its products versus those of Apple? The closest and most effective approach the team in Redmond has come up with thus far are the “Laptop Hunters” series, which just calls MacBooks what they are: more expensive.

When it comes to malware, being small is an advantage!

A small market share also works to Apple’s benefit when it comes to malware. As a hacker/virus writer, why go after such a small installed user base when Windows machines are so much more abundant? Macs aren’t virus-free because they are inherently more secure. They’re free of malware because hackers don’t care enough right now. There is not enough money to be made by hacking Macs. And if hackers were to target the Mac, Apple would be forced to respond much faster in patching its software – something the company is known to not take very seriously.

The long and short of it is that first, Apple would have difficulty breaking out of the number two spot in the operating system world. And second, being number two is not necessarily a bad thing: considering the baggage that being number one brings, being at the top would put the company in a place it does not want to be. If OS X were the dominant force in the computer world, Apple would have to deal with the same interoperability issues that Microsoft faces today with Windows. In the race for the computer dollar, Apple is a distant second: and that’s where it should stay for the benefit of its customers and for its own good. That is, if it wants to hold on to its extremely high user satisfaction ratings. But will it be able to stay second? And if so, for how long?

BingTweets: after

BingTweets is a great idea that lacks a great user interface (UI). This – overall – hinders the user experience (UX). As design-obsessed as I am, I’ve taken the liberty to create a UI of what BingTweets “could” look like. If it were to look like this, then I believe people would take it a bit more seriously.

If you’re not aware of it by now, I’m a twitterholic. So, I wanted to know my followers’ opinions about Microsoft’s BingTweets. After the service was released, I asked my Twitter friends the following question: “What do you think of BingTweets?” I started to receive responses that didn’t make sense to me. One response stated “I don’t have a need for it. Twitter is a better mobile experience to me anyway. I prefer UberTwitter 4 BBerry.” This user isn’t even aware of what BingTweets really is! And that’s a problem. It’s obvious that the point of the site is not immediately clear to users upon first glance. Responding to my question on Twitter, another user stated “[I] Won’t be using it anytime soon.” If the purpose of BingTweets were made more clear, then these users would – obviously – have a different opinion about the product! When a user gets to bingtweets.com, things seem “a bit dizzy” – wrote another respondent.

To get to the chase, users do not see the sole purpose of BingTweets when they get to the site. The user does not see an area for a “call to action,” (except for “search results” – which is not the purpose of the site). Therefore, the site seems a little off and can have a dizzy look associated with it. Some may attribute the service and think that “it’s just Microsoft trying to ride off of Twitter’s coattails to promote Bing.” It’s truly upsetting to me that users think this, because BingTweets has incredible potential that is masked behind 5 content areas of “I’m not sure what the point is here.”

In order to help BingTweets out a bit, I decided to study the design and then mock up a design of my own – using seven key concepts that may help the user experience:1) Upon first arriving to the site, the user is greeted with a logo, which states that the purpose of BingTweets: “fusing twitter trends with Bing insights.”

Problem: Yes, it’s a great catch phrase that includes many hot-button words. But what does it mean to the average user? Nothing. Being such, this is an area where the purpose of the product needs to be shown rather than told.

2) Moving past the logo and tagline, the product has an area that seems to be drawing more attention to itself than it should: “search results.” Being a new search engine, Bing is not (yet) all that popular. So it wouldn’t really make sense to focus the user’s attention to the “search results” content area. I think it would be a better move to also bring as much attention to the “tweets” section. In my design, I’ve emphasised both sections. This way, the user is drawn to the two main content areas of the site immediately, not just to the search results section. Afterall, they have come to “BingTweets” and not to “Bing.” In that regard, the user is expecting to have something related to Twitter and to Bing at the same time. The current design draws more attention to Bing Search results. If the user would have wanted Bing Search, he would have typed six less letters (“tweets”) in the address bar!

3) The inability to scroll through the “tweets” column also seems peculiar to me. Why would a user use the product if he doesn’t have the ability to see what everyone is talking about regarding a particular subject/topic? Don’t you think he’d like to to see more than the real-time four/five tweets? This feature needs to be added, otherwise some of the functionality (and promise) of the site is lost! Yet it needs to be done in a way that’s not obtrusive to the user – something that is taken care of by the arrows I’ve included in my mock-up. When a situation should arise that a user needs/wants to view the tweets of more people, this feature is a must. For example, the reporting of Michael Jackson’s Cardiac Arrest (tweets were flying left and right with reports of the incident). But that’s not all: while reading a tweet that’s located at the end of the “tweets” content area, the user may only get half way before the stream cycles through. Then, the user has no way of retrieving the tweet that he was previously reading, which would lead to a frantic search for a button that would bring the tweet back.

4) I’ve included a few instructional phrases to give the user a better understanding of what the point of the product is:

- Currently, the product has a very useful feature to play a live demo and see the service in action. To me, it would seem that the live demo controls would be overlooked very often. Personally, I discovered the auto-demo feature accidentally, as I was browsing the service while writing this (which is not good). In that regard, I’ve included a “Play Live Demo” button that makes the demo feature more prominent and allows for better placement of the “play” button.

- On a similar note, I’ve also added a prominent call to action with the “learn more” button. Engaging this button would initiate the live demo – serving as a back-up for those who missed the “Play Live Demo!” link.

5) I’ve also enhanced the current colors while keeping within the Bing color scheme. These new colors “pop” and bring more attention to areas of the site to which we want to draw the user (namely, the content areas). The same goes for the small orange link at the top of the design, which subtly insists that a user submit feedback.

6) This is not a major issue by any stretch: the “bing search” content area is side-scrollable. Not a major UX hiccup, but something that can and should be fixed, nonetheless.

7) Besides the UI, I’d like to know how BingTweets determines its trending topics: the topics that are “Popular Now” don’t match what’s trending on Twitter.

Overall, I like the concept behind BingTweets and the direction Microsoft is taking its newly reborn search engine. I’d like to see more information on the front page of the service to let users know exactly what the product is and how useful it can be! Let’s face it, users are not going to read the lengthy description of what BingTweets is under the small and faint “About Bing Tweets” tab. Whoever clicks on that link is not an average user, but rather someone like myself (or a blogger looking to find more information for a story). What do you think of the design (mine as well as the current BingTweets design)? Sound off in the comments!

BingTweets: before

BingTweets: after

Project Trident is a  new scientific tool kit by Microsoft that aims to revolutionize the way academia deals with the increasing onslaught of experiment data. In the past, as well as today, a scientist would design an experiment, collect the data, analyze the data using some sort of programming, and review the results. The big hang up in all of this was the programming involved to bring the experiment to life: a programmer was brought in to make one-off programs for a specific experiment. Any changes to the experiment would require the programmer to make revisions. If another scientist wanted to perform the experiment elsewhere, there would be another programmer involved to write the experiment code. This became an ever-increasing problem of inefficiencies and wasted time. Microsoft to the rescue.Borrowing an idea from industry and computer science, the software giant has introduced an idea based around an existing concept: workflow. Without getting into a detailed explanation (ask in the comments if you want me to), we can say that workflow is the organization of work and the ability to visualize the working process. In software engineering, it can allow for minute changes to be made without destroying hours of productivity. A programmer is still required for the initial programming and set-up, but a scientist who is relatively tech-savvy would now be able to make small changes to the processing and flow of information in minutes. This is done by developing a GUI for the program that analyzes experimental data. Think of it as a flow chart that has some serious programming behind the boxes. This might sound so obvious, so why wasn’t it done before? Why did Microsoft have to be the company to push this out?

The answer, dear readers, is interoperability! Without the ability to work on several machines, the idea of workflow was nice in theory. Yet it still didn’t change the fact that scientist were at the mercy of their programmers. So Microsoft did what it does best: provide a common language, a common set of tools, and a common workspace for experiments to take place.

Often, it takes the industry leader to make a standard. Who better than Microsoft, the industry leader in many fields of software, to tackle this project head-on? Project Trident is based on .Net, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Silverlight (for those that want to run workflows remotely). The tool also has the ability to output into a myriad of other Microsoft software, including Excel and Word.

What does this mean for you and me? Absolutely nothing. What does this mean for the scientific community – the people for whom this is designed for? To them, it means the world! Now, scientists the world over have the ability to run experiments with little to no interaction from a programming expert after the initial set up. With a common foundation, scientists the world over can recreate experiments using the same software and redesign experiments for use with other settings. In its press release, Microsoft highlighted an experiment designed for mice that, with very little modification to the workflow, has the ability to run on humans. With one fell swoop, Microsoft has given the scientific community a much-needed set of tools, for free. The only question now is, will the scientific community use them?

Sometime late last evening, Microsoft launched its latest addition to its Bing decision engine.  Dubbed Bing Tweets, the new destination is a mash up of real-time Twitter search with Bing web results (something Microsoft apparently calls Bing Insights).  Interestingly, the site is a second series of partnerships between Microsoft and Federated Media – the first being ExecTweets.  And while there is a plethora of real-time search engines cropping up (seemingly left and right nowadays), Bing Tweets may be that one place that takes real-time search mainstream.

Bing Tweets is described as combining “Twitter trends with Bing search results, enabling you to see deeper, real-time information about the hottest topics on Twitter. You can also search for anything in the BingTweets search box (at the top right of every page) and see Bing search results alongside the most recent related tweets.”

Design

The design is very attractive, user friendly, and fairly straightforward.  It takes a few seconds and a few clicks to get used to the layout, which consists of five main content areas and one search box.

In the upper right corner, above the four main content areas, Bing Tweets displays a search box.  This is no ordinary search box, since using it will deliver a combination of Tweets along with search results from Bing (the decision engine we’ve all come to love).  Here is a brief description of the five content areas:

Trending topics on Twitter: this is where I anticipate most users will interact with Bing Tweets.  This section currently consists of four main categories: Popular Now, People, Places, and Products.  Clicking one of these categories reveals the appropriate subset of trending topics on Twitter.  A really cool feature here is the ability of trending topics to grow and shrink.  If, for example, the trending topic for the Palm Pre became more popular, the size of the font would grow.  The reverse effect (shrinking) is also true if the trending topic loses its popularity.  Over time, I see the headings being expanded into other categories: politics and sports spring to mind.

The Tweets content area (column) is immediately below the trending topics on Twitter content area.  It displays a self-updating stream of tweets about the trending topic selected in the above content area.  When a user clicks a tweet in this stream, the updates pause for a few seconds and resume again.  Interestingly enough, the tweets displayed here aren’t exactly real-time: in my tests, Bing Tweets first began displaying tweets from a few days ago and upon running out of new tweets to display, the stream stopped moving (I searched for an unpopular topic).  One interesting tidbit is that this stream doesn’t seem to take hash tags into account when displaying tweets.  When I searched for TechNest Report and included #TechNestReport in my tweet, the stream didn’t display my update with the hash tag at all.

Search Results: this is the area of the site that needs the least amount of explaining, since it’s a direct Bing search result, down to the T.  It’s actually an iFrame of the Bing search results page and allows one to scroll left and right outside the intended viewing area.  Perhaps this is why Lizette thought the site was rushed to market: the Bing team could have integrated a real Bing results page and not just an iFrame.

Share this result: this content area is directly to the right of the trending topics on Twitter content area and above the search results content area.  It’s prefilled with the following text by default: “Check out BingTweets about your search query,” (emphasis – mine) followed by a bit.ly URL and a #bing hashtag.  The user has the option to Tweet this or ShareThis.  Tweeting this takes the user directly to his web-based Twitter account and prefills the compose Tweet box.  ShareThis is actually a ShareThis button (the company) which allows the user to email, text, or post the web page to a myriad of social networks.  By using the ShareThis button as opposed to a custom-built social sharing solution, the service may give off the vibe of being rushed to market, although I think only the hardcore tech geeks will notice this.  The ShareThis button is quite common throughout the web, so it actually might decrease the learning curve for mainstream users – increasing the chances that the user has seen and used the button on a different site.  For example, our blog also uses the ShareThis button.

How do you decide? The last content area of the service is located at the bottom of the page.   It asks visitors: “How do you use the Internet to find the answers you need to make faster, more informed decisions?”  The question is followed by an invitation to Share Your Ideas, which – when clicked – takes users to a page with a form that asks to fill out the name, email, title, and idea.  The submit button is preceded by a check box that reads “I have read and agree with the Terms & Conditions of contributing to the White Paper.”  This content area collects the submissions and then divides them into Featured Authors and Recent Ideas.  It’s unclear exactly what the process is that would take a submission from an idea to a featured author spot, but I’m guessing that’s the part that Federated Media takes care of.  Current featured authors include Anita Campbell, Harry McCracken, and Xeni Jardin, among others.

Overall, Microsoft got it right with the user interface.  It’s very easy to use for such a powerful real-time search engine.  My only suggestion for the site would be to unify suggested terms.  If I search for TechNestReport (one word) using the top-most search box in Bing Tweets, the Bing search results content area would present its suggestion: TechNest Report (with a space between Nest and Report).  It would be nice to see the suggestions unified across the entire service.  The site is built using Java components and thus uses absolutely no Flash to display its dynamic effects (read: auto-updating Twitter search).  As such, it is extremely mobile friendly: my Flash-less iPhone displayed the web page without a hitch.

Goals: mainstream or whalestream?

So what’s the target market here?  Currently, real-time search is a popular topic among web geeks and has not yet received the proper attention from mainstream media that it deserves.  Nevertheless, Microsoft has its own battles to fight on the search front.  It currently has two major goals with Bing: increase consumer awareness (brand awareness) which – eventually – should translate to taking search share away from other players.  Bing is doing its own thing on that front and initial reports are showing signs of success.  Bing Tweets might be Microsoft’s second phase of assault on Google, delivering real-time search before the incumbent is – after all – what any underdog would be proud of: beating Google feature-by-feature.  At the present time, Bing Tweets does not display any ads whatsoever, so it seems that the purpose is to drive usage of the service and build awareness of Bing as an innovator and as a viable alternative to the oh-so-popular Google.  That is, until Google releases its own a real-time search product.

I came across this video on the interwebs and thought long and hard about posting it here.  Finally decided to do it.  This is not to poke or make fun of anyone or anything, just a very well thought-out video about the inner workings of the Microsof Surface, according to so folks.  Enjoy!

Hi from Multitouch Barcelona on Vimeo.