Microsoft Adds Social Shopping To Bing SearchMicrosoft Adds Social Shopping To Bing Search

Microsoft said it partnered with deals aggregator The Dealmap to launch Bing deals, a service that lets users of the search engine quickly find the best bargains on everything from restaurant meals to yoga lessons in their local area.

Bing users who click on the new "Deals" tab on the Bing mobile site will see offers from social purchasing sites like Groupon, Living Social, and Restaurant.com, all in a single location courtesy of technology from The Dealmap. Desktop users who search on a business name will be automatically pointed to any available deals.

"Bing's mission is to help you cut through the clutter of the Web to make decisions more quickly—whether that's through our own innovations or by teaming up with industry experts," said Andy Chu, director of product management at Microsoft's Bing for Mobile group.

"The Dealmap is a leading source for people to find and share the best local deals, so naturally it made sense for use to team up with them to bring you the best experience," said Chu, in a blog post Thursday.

Microsoft has introduced numerous new features to Bing—such as deeper ties with Facebook and one-click integration with travel and entertainment booking sites—in recent months in an effort to add value to its search results and ultimately dent Google's dominant share of the search market.

The campaign may be paying off, albeit slowly. Microsoft increased its share of U.S. search results by 1.1% in January, to 13.1%, while Google's share fell 1% to 65.6%, according to the latest data from market watcher comScore.

But Google isn't standing still. The company recently enhanced its Social Search feature so that links favored by the user's friends on sites like Twitter, Blogger, YouTube, and Flickr are prominently featured.

Still, Google's own social networking ambitions mean it's unlikely to integrate its results with Facebook anytime soon, giving Bing a monopoly on direct ties with the world's largest social network.

Microsoft shares were off .13%, to $26.17, in early trading Friday. Join information and Network Computing for a virtual event on data center transformation on March 24. Register now.