Bing – the search engine launched by Microsoft is all set to undergo a major site renovation – a new sidebar will get featured showing information from Facebook and other social networks.

Microsoft has gone on to hail it as the “new Bing”. It is said to consist of three columns on the search results page. The widest of the three is the far left column and will list traditional search links. In the middle, a “Snapshot” pane shows relevant information directly on the search page, such as restaurant reviews, maps and hotel room rates. On the far right, a gray “Sidebar” shows social search results.

There is a general consent to the sidebar posing to be the most interesting part of the makeover. This feature enables users to pose their question to their Facebook friends directly from the search page. In turn, they will be provided with a list of who might know about the given topic. Users will also be able to add comments on Facebook and pin Bing searches to their posts using the Sidebar.

The Sidebar will allow users to exploit the suggestions given by “top experts and enthusiasts” based on their knowledge about a topic, their public postings on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Qoura, LinkedIn and Blogger. Google+ users also can make full use of this feature. You as the user will also be presented with an activity feed on the bottom half the Sidebar, an activity feed showing posts from Facebook friends who’ve chosen to share with you and everyone else using Bing.

The new addition by Bing to its search engine will surely hurt Google on the way it handles social search. Despite Google introducing the “Search Plus Your World” option, Google search results will now be showing an option for “personal results” at the top of the page. Although Google+ data will get prominent treatment in the main search column, other search results may get affected by the user’s Google+ contacts.

In a recent blog post, Bing’s Derrick Connell and Harry Shum had decided to take a head-on dig at Google’s approach (without mentioning the company by name that is) by citing: “Instead of cluttering your results with social updates, we’re honoring the purity of the core web results making it easier to focus on the links you need to get things done”.

It must be mentioned that Microsoft has a long history of access with Facebook – as Microsoft was an early investor in Facebook – resulting in several product partnerships through the years. On the other hand, Google had recently entered the social networking scenario by launching its own with Google+. However, it must be observed that the network is not nearly as popular as Facebook. Google is trying to set amends and increase the potential user-base in the social network scenario by incorporating it with other products. Critics however have thumped down this approach adopted by Google stating the company has lost focus on core search.

From a user’s perspective, the Sidebar being introduced by Bing will seem like a more sensible way to bring together both social networking and traditional search. For this, we just need to wait and see what Microsoft will say in the coming days when it rolls out with the new Bing. Users who can’t wait to catch the first look of the Sidebar and other accompanying features can can sign up for an e-mail alert.

Boring Blogs

Now a daysm there are countless of awesome blogs are online. So, People need a reason to want to come to your blog. So if your blog has:

• all text with no or few images
• monotonous writing or academic sounding posts
• a sitting-on-the-fence approach to a topic

Not Posting Often And Consistently

Everyday? Once a week? Once a month? No specific time? Well, if you are not posting often enough, your readers would eventually grow out of the habit of clicking on your blog URL. Even those frequent visitors who had been visiting your blogs previously, they would over time, forget about your blog too!

Too Many Advertisements

Ever been to those blogs that has tons of advertisements that shout at you? How did you feel? Having some advertisements is alright but crowding your blog with banners and links would turn off your readers.

Moreover, blogs with lots of advertisements usually take a long time to load, which I’m sure you know, is not good for SEO purposes.

Your Blog Design Leaves Much To Desire

I’ll be honest here. Blog design does play a crucial part in drawing new readers and persuading them to stay. Take a step back and review your bog design. How does it fare? You can also ask your readers whether they think you need a makeover. That’s an engaging post there!

Lack Of Exposure

On the other hand, you may have developed the best looking blog and publishing great posts every other day and yet still experience low readership and traffic. What could be wrong? Well, it takes more than design and good writing to draw readers. You need to market your blog. People need to know that it exists!

Last Monday, Facebook revealed that it has reached a staggering 901 million active users reflecting its growth. The count is almost 3 times higher than the population ofUnited Statesand nearly 2 million more than ofEurope. If things continue at this rate, we can even say that Facebook would become the second or third largest country in the world soon with self-centered people (pun intended). It must be noted that a year ago, the numbers were around about 680 million.

According to United Nations estimation, the population of world had increased by 383,047,000 between the years 2000 and 2005. But, the 221 million users of Facebook in a year of time are faster than the population increase of world in less than 5 years. As a result of such great numbers shown by facebook, it is expected by many that it will probably exceed the 1 billion mark by the year end.

In a day, Facebook obtains an average of about 3.2 billion likes and comments posted. This just goes on to prove that more than half of the world’s population spends their time by updating their status, commenting on somebody else’s status, photos, activities, etc.

Facebook has described that nearly 300 million photos are uploaded every single day. It must be said that these photo numbers were practically not even existent in the world in the year 1990. Facebook is reported to have the largest photo library in the world; estimated at about 10,000 times larger than the Library of Congress.

Are you wondering how all this could happen so easily? Yes, Facebook has 901 million monthly active users, but it occurred only because of the users like us. The unexpected caprices of us are the value of Facebook, the biggest in the social media.

Recently, Facebook rolled out a new photo viewer. Days later, Facebook has rolled our larger profile pictures. In recent Facebook update, they quoted a profile picture measured 130 x 125pixels will be changed to 160 x 160 pixels.

It mean, on April 26, 2012, Facebook updating size of the profile picture on all Pages. The new profile picture will be 160 x 160 pixels and will sit at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the Page.

Google has always been a strong pillar for business developments across the world. This has extended to the Google+ social media where it is feasible to make your business visible to all the users. Google+ has recently created a platform for enhancing the visibility of businesses to people. This is about the Google+ pages for business. Similar to personal account, Google+ allows creating business account where one can talk about business, brand, places or whatsoever related to their business activity.

The feature of Google+ pages for companies is a step towards enhancing the networking capabilities through a social media. Business owner can establish direct contact with the customers by making use of Google+ pages for brands. Not only that, it has employed better marketing strategies where it not only ensures administration support but also adds into its directory. Whenever user looks out for information related to your company, the appropriate businesses are displayed in the search results. The option of Google+ pages for products looks perfectly fine for marketing your products, direct links to the sites and direct connection with customers.

The attempt of Google+ social media towards creating an environment for business owners is indeed a boon to them. It serves like yet another regular account with certain added advantages. The Google+ pages eliminate the need for additional resources for marketing and supply chain. Start activating your business account and enjoy the benefits of it