Microsoft is planning to enable its Facebook social recommendations feature next week, according to reports.
The software giant will enable Facebook “like” data on its search results pages on Tuesda, according to AdAge. Microsoft’s “Bing Social” tool will integrate Facebook data with Bing, allowing social updates to appear on web searches. Facebook results will now appear, sorted by relevancy like other links, throughout the main search page at Bing. Bing users could search for a pizza restaurant and the results will now include social “like” recommendations from their friends. The same will happen for movies and other entertainment sources.
Google has a similar feature where it adds social recommendations to its search results. The web giant is also planning to launch a “plus one” feature to allow users to vote up pages in search results. Google’s current social recommendations feature allows users to see connections from Gmail and Twitter.
Bing’s Facebook integration is a key part of its close relationship with the company. Microsoft’s “decision engine” now has 14% U.S. market share according to comScore. Bing has increased its share consistently over the past six months. Microsoft will hope that the new feature brings more Facebook users to Bing and increases the crucial market share figure.