It turns out that Bing has its own version of Google “Now on Tap” — and it’s now available for Android devices, ahead of the release of Google’s own upgraded service. This morning Bing announced that what the company calls “Bing Snapshots” will deliver contextually relevant search information for any app installed on your Android device.
Consumers will need to update or install the Bing app. After that, however, the new capability will simply work in the background. Consumers won’t need to go to Bing or launch the Bing app to benefit from the new capability. Bing will “read the contents” of any in-app screen and present additional, relevant information once invoked.
The pitch to consumers is: get “answers” and enhanced content without leaving the app. For example, as the screens below provided by Bing illustrate, users in a travel app or discussing a travel destination in a messaging app can can invoke Bing Snapshots by simply long-pressing the home button. A search module will appear that allows the user to get more information. In some cases transactional buttons or links are shown (e.g., book a tour).
Bing sees this as part of the broader evolution of search, with contextual “answers” being delivered in-line rather than requiring users to leave an app for a separate “destination search” experience. That’s partly the rationale behind Google Now on Tap as well. If it catches on it’s also a way for Bing to “colonize” Android by putting Bing in front of app-using Android owners who might otherwise not use the search engine.
Based on what we saw in a briefing yesterday, the capability was definitely worthwhile and impressive (I haven’t had a chance to use it yet). However it’s really only a showcase for a more ambitious push for developers to use a new Bing API that integrates the company’s “knowledge and action graph” directly into apps. This will give developers access to billions of “people, places and things” entities information that Bing has collected and indexed.
That API and developer capability will be available in the fall. The new Bing Snapshots consumer-developer showcase is available this morning with an update (or download) of the Bing search app from Google Play. It’s not clear yet how the API integration will be presented or branded in apps; that’s still being worked out. But the appeal to developers will be: directly integrate new capabilities, answers and actions to your apps with the Bing knowledge graph. And Bing points out that Google is not making its knowledge graph available to developers or any third parties.
Bing’s push to attract Android developers with enhanced capabilities is part of a broader strategy of getting Microsoft tools, software and products in front of Android and iOS users as its own Windows Phone OS has stalled. In parallel, Cortana is also available for Android; however that’s a more conventional destination search experience that requires a separate app be invoked.
The post Bing Beats Google Now On Tap To Android With New “Bing Snapshots” appeared first on Search Engine Land.
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