comScore has released U.S search engine rankings for December 2011, and Google, unsurprisingly, still leads the pack by a huge margin.

Microsoft’s Bing, even after burning billions of dollars in marketing and R&D, still hasn’t made a dent on Google’s market share. Yahoo, on the other hand, is slowly bleeding to death.

Bing had 15% market share in the U.S. in November which increased to 15.1% in December. Google had 65.4% U.S. market share in November which is now up to 65.9%.

Yahoo which had 15.1% market share lost 0.6% – 0.5% to Google and 0.1% to Bing. So effectively, Bing is gaining tiny amounts of search market share from Yahoo, which is powered by Bing’s technology, while Google continues to add to its already considerable numbers.

AOL and Ask are like zombies with 2-3% market share each, with no growth. With Yahoo having given up months ago, Bing is the only real competitor to Google right now. Newer alternatives like DuckDuckGo are still rounding errors in terms of market share. By the looks of it, Bing isn’t going to topple Google any time soon. Hopefully, Bing will at least turn a profit in a couple of years, instead of dragging down Microsoft’s overall margins.

Bing announced, on its Community Blog today, a new enhancement to their search results called “Editors’ Picks”. The service is “designed to enhance Bing results by bringing editorially selected sites to your search”. The goal is to make your search experience faster so that you can be more productive. According to their blog post, “Editors’ Picks are small collections of relevant sites that our online editorial experts think will be useful to you, but may not always make it to the top of the search results page.”

They don’t reveal too much about how they go about picking content to show in the Editors’ Picks search results. One example they use in their blog post is when they see interest in seasonal topics, like Thanksgiving recipes and crafts, so they put together a collection of sites based on that topic. This says to me that they must be sifting through popular search queries and compiling information based on those trends.

Getting Editors’ Picks is pretty simple. You basically start a Bing search and if there are any relevant Editors’ Picks for that subject, a tab will appear at the top of your search results labeled “Editors’ Picks”. They have also cheated a little off of  Google’s Guesses and have added “Instant Answers” below some search results.  You can visit  Bing.com/editorspicks  to find the full list of topics for which they have prepared Editors’ Picks at this time.

This is an interesting move on Bing’s part. I think that it is good to be able to find content based on what a human has picked out. However, isn’t this kind of what Yahoo started out as when it was trying to index the web? I am sure there are some differences but that was the first thing that came to my mind when I read their blog post. I am also curious about how they will be able to overcome a lot of the biases that are out there. For instance, I personally take issue with their stating that they are offering a look at sites that aren’t always at the top search lists, when I look at their “Must Read Tech Blogs” section and it lists the same old blogs that always get attention. Hey Bing, why not show Techie Buzz some love?!? ;) OK, I will get off my soap box now. The thing I am most interested in is if the hand-picked results can show me a side of the web that I otherwise would not have been able to find using  algorithm based searches.  I honestly hope that it can.

There had been some speculation earlier that Firefox was going to dump Google search  as its default search engine and replace it with Microsoft’s Bing, since Google came out with its own browser, Chrome. However, the Mozilla team immediately clarified stating that the default search will remain Google powered, but will add Bing to the pre-existing list of search services likes Wikipedia, Amazon, Yahoo and others.

Yet, Microsoft  wasn’t  pleased about it, and were looking forward for an alternative. In a blog post, Microsoft announced that it has teamed up with the Mozilla team to release a new version of Firefox with Bing, which includes Bing as the default search engine. Well, don’t get too excited about that. This will be released as a separate version along with the default version which is powered by Google search.

It’s just that there are two same versions of Firefox with a different search provider. In other words, Firefox with Bing is exactly the same as normal Firefox. The new version will receive security and version updates at the same time as the normal Firefox.

According to the Bing team, the Bing powered version of Firefox has something called “AwesomeBar” – where you can type in URLs (Web addresses) as well as search queries. Perhaps Microsoft wasn’t aware of it that this feature has been already available in the previous versions of Firefox and is also available in every other browser. Needless to say, Microsoft has always been into this – replicating ideas and giving it another name.

Something to note – In November 2011, Mozilla’s contract with Google will expire. However, we aren’t sure if the contract will be renewed or Mozilla is just going to dump Google. Or it could be the other way round also.

For Mozilla, the partnership with Microsoft is certainly a good deal. Firefox is still the most popular browser, however stats indicate that it is slightly declining month-by-month, but on the other hand, Google’s Chrome is gaining popularity progressively. This, however, makes me think that Google might not be interested in renewing their contract with Firefox.

Also Read:  Why Is Chrome Winning And Firefox Losing Market Share?

Did you know? Google Chrome has been the most used browser on Techie Buzz

Sebastian Anthony from Extreme Tech explained how browsers make money, and Firefox being the most popular browser, generated 97 percent ($104 million) of its revenue from royalties paid from the Firefox search box, out of which 86 percent ($85 million) came from Google alone. Now, if Google does not renew its contract with Firefox, then it could be a direct challenge for Microsoft’s Bing as well as for Firefox in the browser wars.

You can download Firefox with Bing from  FirefoxWithBing.com.

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Bing has introduced a new set of features that enhances Bing for Mobile Browse  experience for the mobile browsers at m.bing.com with the help of Facebook integration and some new additions. Earlier this year, Bing rolled out Liked Results’ to the desktop site which allowed you to instantly see which stories, content, and sites your Facebook friends have liked’.

A thumbs up from your friends definitely makes a particular news story, article, or blog post more relevant to you. The latest update has brought the same feature to the mobile browser. Bing shows faces of up to three of your friends that like a search result, offering a visual and virtual seal of approval from your trusted social network. To enable this feature, you need to authenticate and connect your Facebook account to Bing on the Settings page.

The latest update also brings together millions of videos from across the web: from Hulu, MSN, YouTube, and a slew of other sources. For sports fans, there are special tabs for MLB, NBA, and NHL. To make movie watching decisions easier, the update allows you to quickly review user and critic ratings while you browse the list of currently playing movies, watch trailers, and find show times. You can even ask your Facebook friends what they thought of a movie, or if they want to join you, all from within Bing.

So, this one’s fresh off the Web’s water-cooler that is Twitter. Bing and Twitter did a Twitter conversation that hints at a renewed search deal between the two, or at least some announcement around the same.

(Read from bottom up to the top)

While this is also a dig at Google who lost the search deal, it could just pave way for a fresh announcement around Bing-Twitter deal. While Bing has made good strides in several search verticals like travel, it struck a fine deal with Twitter two years ago that allows it to use Twitter data for its real time search queries. Twitter’s search, for all it’s worth, is far from being useful allowing searching only past few tweets. Bing had earlier also integrated social information from Facebook within the search results making them more relevant.

While this conversation was on, Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing at Microsoft added fuel to the fire by posting a message to Jessica Verrili who handles Business & Corporate Development at Twitter.

While Twitter and Bing do the harmless flirting in the preview, I’ll grab some popcorn and wait for the show reel.

Google Everywhere

It is hard to go online today without touching one or more Google products or services. If it is not search, it may be email, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, Docs, or Calendar. Google has truly blanketed us with their web-based app offerings. Heck, even the Google Doodle is a conversation topic!

In this editorial, I shall discuss how you can kick the Google habit, what I am using now as alternatives and why you probably won’t be able to replace certain Google products today. Ready to move away from Google? First, some background.

Why un-Google?

Some of the reasons I personally decided to look for alternatives:

• Google became a part of virtually everything I did online. I used GMail, Google Reader, Google Finance, Blogger, Picasa, Picasa Web, Google Docs, Google Search, Google Calendar and Google Maps. I felt uncomfortable putting such a large portion of my online life in Google’s hands.
• Google morphed from the cool little startup building fun stuff for consumers, to a dominant public company whose revenues essentially came from just one product. That’s the key most (96%) of its revenues (and profits) came from search advertising. In other words, it needed other ways to make money. The most obvious way to do so would be to extend the arm of advertising, their main revenue-generating product, into other products. I realized I was the merchandise.
• Google seemed to get Apple and Facebook envy. Apple was growing rapidly across all their product lines and at very high profit margins, and Facebook was taking eyeballs and key talent away from Google. This led to some bad attempts to mock Apple and Facebook publicly, which of course delighted the Google developer and enthusiast community but came off as being negative to me. If you make a great product, you don’t need a negative campaign.
• Aside from philosophy, some of the competing products started becoming better, and Google’s products started getting worse (more on that within my descriptions) prompting me to start Project Un-Google which was an effort to use fewer and fewer Google products, hopefully reaching a point where I did not depend on any Google product at all.

Whether it is for philosophy, or hedging your web app bets, it is good to know there is life outside Google when it comes to products and services online and offline. There is usually a strong resistance to change, especially if you have a long history with a product. There is a high cost for transferring the old stuff, and learning your way around a new product/service. However, these challenges are not insurmountable, and I hope you take a look at some or all of the products I list here as an alternative to Google. If you have ideas of other products I may not have mentioned, please let me know!

Popular Google products

Here are some of the Google products/services I will be comparing to competition:

• Search
• Picasa
• GMail
• Calendar
• Documents
• Groups
• Finance
• Blogger
• Chrome
• Maps/Directions
• Talk/Chat/Voice

I realize Google has many more products, appsand services, but I did not look at products like Book Search which are very niche. My attempt here is to look at the commonly used products and services only.

The Bing Webmaster team has announced the integration of Yahoo traffic data into Bing Webmaster Tools reports. Bing Webmaster Tools will now be showing integrated data from Yahoo within certain areas and reports. At this time the data will be combined, not selectable. The transition happens in August, although September will be the first full month of combined data.

Bing Webmaster Tools help site owners to drive more visitors to their site using Bing data on search queries, crawling, and search traffic.   They can see their site as Bing does, optimize for search, share site information with Bing, and view a comprehensive list of sites that are linking to their site.

In Bing Webmaster Tools, the Traffic summary report and Page Traffic reports will be impacted, although no actual rankings will be affected by the combining of data within Bing webmaster Tools. On these pages, both Bing and Yahoo! logos will appear above the graphs.

1. Impressions will go up based on combined data numbers across both search engines
2. Clicks will go up based on combined data numbers
3. Click Through Rates (CTR) as appropriate for above (change only due to the mathematics involved in the first two items)

Microsoft has unwrapped a new Bing app that goes by the clever and self-explanatory name of “We’re In“. The app allows  a user to send out invitations to selected friends for an event. An expiration date for each invitation can be toggled in order to turn off location sharing at a predefined time. Once launched, the app allows you to select a list of people to invite to your event along with details, such as location, time or other personal notes.

Once a user accepts the invitation and sends a reply, their location is visible to you and vice-versa. This works similar to how Google Latitude does, displaying all your friends on a map relative to your location.  Each user can control their invitation expiration and can view other friends in the group. This makes for a much easier way to manage who can see where you are and when they can see where you are.

The unofficial motto behind Windows Phone is “get in, get out, get back to life’. This app is a perfect example of the route that Microsoft has taken with designing Windows Phone and the services they provide to users. They reduce the amount of required  interactions in order to make getting information extremely fast and extremely simple. The newest update to Windows Phone, dubbed Mango, brings along some refreshing changes  that enhance the user experience and ultimately aligns Windows Phone with it’s competitors.

Unfortunately the We’re In app is only available to users in the United States (due to “location data regulations”, as per the Bing Team) and it is not available for all current devices.  In the mean time, users who are looking for a cross-platform and completely free service that has very similar functionality should check out Glympse.

Remember the Bill Gates-Seinfeld ads that were aired before the popular I’m a PC’ campaign by Microsoft? The ads, with no product mention or any geeky conversation ended with the line: The future is delicious’.

I love the line. Yes, I do. Concept cars, technology vision videos, and even the scenarios in science fiction movies have been reasons of many of orgasms I have had. Anyway, do you notice a pattern in all these desires? The keywords are: concept, vision, and fiction. Well, that hurts. However, Microsoft’s peek into the future is built around current products and technologies and looks a certain reality in few months.

In the past, the focus for living room has been entertainment and electronic appliances like home-theatre systems and entertainment/gaming consoles like Xbox. The time has now changed and along with consumer interests the industry has also seen a transformation in terms of technologies and offerings. Traditional broadcast and cable TV have made way for time-shifted and on-demand TV via DVRs and other devices. DVD rentals have been replaced by on-demand movie delivery via services such as Netflix and Hulu. Watching videos on sites like YouTube almost equals the time spent watching TV series.

Xbox presents a wide array of entertainment options games, movies, music, TV shows, sports programming, services like Netflix and Hulu, and programming and on-demand options available through cable and satellite providers. By converging the Xbox’s catalogue with Bing’s deep search expertise, Microsoft Tellme’s voice technology, and the magic of Kinect, Microsoft hopes to give the consumers the power of simplicity, discovery, and personal choice in your living rooms with the people you care about.

Watch this video by Microsoft that is inspired by their philosophy in this space: All the entertainment you want, with the people you care about, made easy. Delicious indeed!