Microsoft and Klout have announced a new partnership to strengthen social search and online influence by incorporating Klout’s data into the Bing’s search engine. On Bing, Microsoft is going to display Klout data — including a person’s Klout score and topics they are “influential” about — on the new Bing Sidebar pane for those users who can and want to see this information. And on Klout, highlights from Bing will begin surfacing in the ‘moments’ section of some people’s Klout profiles.
In a blog post, The Bing Team detailed about this partnership :
Today, we’re excited to announce that Bing and Klout are partnering to help enrich the discovery and recognition of influencers across our platforms. This is an alliance based on a shared belief that people are at the center of task completion. To help you find the right person we need to determine who is influential and trusted on different topics on the web. Bing and Klout share this vision. In addition to the technical partnership described below, we are announcing that we are making a strategic investment in Klout.
Klout brings a deep social DNA to the table having done some very cool and exciting work to help people understand social influence, find their voice and have an impact on the world. When we combine that expertise with the work our Bing team has done on the marriage of search and social, along with the big science challenges around relevance and ranking (especially people ranking), there are exciting possibilities for what we can do together for web users. Our engineering teams will work together to expand the scope of social search and influence.
In a blog post announcing that Bing would become one of Klout’s “most significant partners, Klout CEO Joe Fernandez, said :
This is a small step for Bing and Klout towards a very big idea: search through people. You will see a continuous flow of innovation from our joint development team focused on the discovery and recognition of influencers on both Bing and Klout. If you haven’t registered your profile on Klout, now is a great time to start building your influence and making it easier for others to discover your passions and expertise on Bing.”
Also, experts who appear in Bing’s “People Who Know” section of the sidebar will be recognized on Klout. The changes to Klout will come in the next few months, while Klout’s data will begin appearing in Bing immediately, Microsoft says.
Both the companies have not yet disclosed the exact terms of this partnership. Recently Microsoft launched BingItOn to let users compare the relevancy of search results between Bing and Google.
