Bing enters URL shorten game with binged.it
Bing has entered the arena of URL shortening, turning long bits of URL into an easily manageable URL. Some Microsoft employees have already begun using the new service for posts on their blogs and tweets.
However, the new binged.it URL is actually longer than most shortening services out there, not to mention it’s longer than its own URL, bing.com. It may only be longer by one character, but with the domain like “bing.com”, Microsoft could have easily used bing.it, which is also owned by Microsoft.
Google recently came out with goo.gl (five characters), Facebook’s fb.me (four characters), bit.ly (five characters) and now Bing’s very own Binged.it (eight characters).
It appears this service is only open to Microsoft employees for blogs and tweets, as @ fareologist (Bing Travel) has been using the service for about a week now, while @bing still uses bit.ly for their shortening service.
Right now, both binged.it and bing.it redirect to bing.com, so we may possibly see a bing.it service in the future.
Microsoft admits that Bing is slow at indexing
Search Engine Roundtable brings to attention a very sad and disturbing fact about Microsoft Bing. It's slow at indexing sites. In the Bing Forums, prathaban1 posted the following:
"I have submitted my website, www.kidandparent.in, to the Webmaster Console, using a sitemap.xml almost 6 weeks ago. It is a new website with unique content and Bing calculates about 14 Backlinks to it. However, just the homepage has been indexed so far (with help from Brett). G and Y have indexed almost 400 and 200 pages respectively. Any pointers on what I can do to get indexed by Bing?"
Brett Yount, who is the Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, responded:
"It is well known in the industry that MSNbot is fairly slow. I suggest reading our FAQs stickied at the top of the indexing forum to get some ideas of what to do."
But wait, it gets better. Here's the sticky from the "sites not in the index" section of the Bing Forum:
"if your site is not in the index, please do the following:
1. verify in our tools that your site is not blocked
2. run a site: query to verify there are no pages in the index
3. Copy the URL of the site query and post on this thread.
I will work with you to at least get your home page indexed. Deeper indexing will require good content and backlinks as described in the FAQ."
I ask you to please read number 3 again. Yes, that's correct. If your site doesn't show up in Bing's index after submitting it through the site, you can post your website's address in the forum, and someone will manually add it into the index for you. How can Microsoft expect Bing to compete with Google if it can't even handle the simple task of indexing a page within an acceptable time frame? Microsoft says they are serious about conquering the world of search, but problems like this one tend to take search domination out of the equation. It would be a good idea for Microsoft to straighten this out instead of just openly admitting to its users that everyone knows they're slow.
An Incredible Hidden Feature in WLM “Windows Live Messenger”
Days ago, while I was working, I tried to send my coworker a file through Windows Live Messenger as a shortcut in presence of broadband. The file was about 20 MB, as soon as my coworker accepted to receive the file, it arrived in just a moment! I was astonished, I was certain that broadband connection won’t permit that speed. I thought it was due to the LAN that was configured with AD and ISA servers that may accelerated the connection. I went home while being thinking about it.
Today, I tried to send a file over my home network with same method through WLM while I’m on 1 Mbps ADSL. The file size was 24 MB, I accepted from the other PC and it was arrived in less than 3 seconds!
What I realized lately, that WLM “Windows Live Messenger” in fact is not only an Internet based IM client, but also a LAN file transfer manager! It could determine that both clients are for same network “maybe IP test” and soon instead of sending file across Internet, it sends file over LAN without need to pass through very very long routes worldwide and back do destination.
I tried to search web for articles about this features, however I didn’t find any results or news from the Live Messenger team yet.
I hope that everyone enjoy this feature! Thank you Microsoft! Thank you Live Messenger!
We Turned to Bing!
Dear visitors,
![Binglogo4[3]](http://www.ahmedmahdy.com/image.axd?picture=Binglogo4%5B3%5D.png "Binglogo4[3]")
I’m pleased to announce that we’re from the early few sites who started providing their sites with the new Microsoft Bing search engine!
As I mentioned before, I would not like the idea of reading white papers, videos about such new product, especially that I’m an official Microsoft Beta Tester and I feel passion to beta test the actual system myself.
Bing is really amazing, with a rapid Bing Crawler that indexes site very fast unlike any other search engine (even Google) that didn’t yet index my new migrated website.
As soon as I submitted my site to Bing, it starts to submit site pages to the new search engine! Really wow!
Bing to prove it’s one of the best websites worldwide for the year 2009 and upcoming decade, ending 2 decades of the empires of Yahoo! and Google respectively.
Now if you want to find something, Bing It! www.bing.com
TBot, Your Most Loyal Online Friend!
I' was really astonished when a friend asked me to add a Hotmail contact into my Windows Live Messenger. When I asked him, what’s it? He simply answered: a Bot!
My mind immediately went to the auto disturbing bots that IMs us in some other public messengers, but soon, I decided to add it and figure it out.
I was surprised, it’s an automated translation system released by Microsoft, Windows Live division!
TBot is a new technology Microsoft released as an add-on to the Windows Live Translator service. It’s to allow a complete interaction between automated bot system connected to the Windows Live Translator servers and billions of Windows Live Messenger users and Yahoo! Messenger users due to the interoperability between the most famous IMs to offer a real-time translations for up to 6 languages.
TBot is easy to use. Once you add it, it will welcome you and asks you to set a default language to translate to. It’s more similar like the automated phone systems by sending certain numbers for certain set of options. If you forgot these numbers of need any help anytime, just tell him: “TBot ?” and it will offer you rich options of help.
I recommend everyone with Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger to add TBot to their IM. TBot is the most loyal friend you’ll have, always online, always available for you to reply your posts instantly.
MSN, Baidu Partenership for Ads in China
Microsoft and Baidu announced a strategic partnership on Thursday that calls for the Chinese site to sell ads on select MSN and Live properties within China. Baidu, the top search provider in the country, disclosed the partnership in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, however.
The move is somewhat curious considering Microsoft
recently launched its adCenter offering in an effort to compete on a more even keel with Yahoo and Google. Initially offered in the United States, Britain, France and Singapore, Microsoft plans to expand it to other countries in the near future. However, in China its web properties are far less popular, possibly the reason for such a deal.