Tag: tv
Bing Dives Into Entertainment With New Search Vertical
by Ranju Chaudhary on Jun.23, 2010, under Trends, What's Happening?
Microsoft’s search engine just got a whole lot more media-focused with the launch of Bing Entertainment, a new vertical centering on music, movies, TV and games. The goal behind the new destination atbing.com/entertainment is to make it easier to find what movie to watch, what music to listen to, what casual games to play: “spend less time searching for entertainment and more time doing the stuff you love.”
New features within each content section aim to connect searchers with answers more quickly. In Bing Music, users will now be able to preview entire songs from the 5+ million song library, plus get lyrics, artist profiles, upcoming concerts and events, and purchase tracks with one click from iTunes, Zune or Amazon. Bing Movies brings together visual search results with customer reviews, showtimes, in-line movie trailers, one-click purchasing, related Facebook and Twitter updates plus Bing Maps integration for planning an evening out.
Bing TV collates over 1,500 shows and 20,000 full TV episodes from partners including Hulu
, CBS, Viacom and others. Along with access to episodes and reviews, users can also socialize search results and episodes via Facebook, Twitter, instant messenger or email. Bing Games aggregates reviews, cheats and walkthroughs for console and PC titles as well as providing 100 playable casual games right in-line.
The new vertical represents a significant push into entertainment territory as well as furthering Bing’s
efforts to actually compete with Google
in the search arena. It’s essentially welcome competition for consumers, some of whom will undoubtedly find Bing’s search vertical approach a refreshing way to find information by context.
What do you think of Bing’s new Entertainment vertical? If you get a chance to try it out, be sure to let us know your impressions in the comments
The Next Food Network Star Could Come From YouTube
by Ranju Chaudhary on Jun.12, 2010, under Latest Web Technologies, Trends, What's Happening?
The new trend in cable and network television is to turn to social media sites to recruit talent for reality series. Case in point, The Food Network has put out a challenge asking YouTubers tosubmit video entries to be considered for The Next Food Network Star.
Entries will be accepted through July 16, and though the prize for the winning entry isn’t a guaranteed spot on the show, it’s still pretty decent: a one-on-one audition in New York City with Food Network executives.
If you’re unfamiliar with the reality series, this show challenges contestants to live in a house together and compete in food-creating challenges in the hopes of securing their own series on the Food Network. Episodes are usually filled with drama, tears and celebrity chef guests.
Obviously, YouTubers auditioning will want to show a ton of personality mixed with culinary prowess should they wish to be considered for the actual show audition.
The YouTube challenge reminds us of the Glee casting call on MySpace and the America’s Got TalentYouTube auditions, but there’s nothing wrong with emulating a strategy that works.
