Announced on October 13, the partnership between Facebook and Bing continues to generate  plenty of buzz. It is supposed to change the world of search, for better or worse. In short, Bing will start incorporating data from Facebook in its search results pages, meaning that websites, articles, music and anything else that someone’s Facebook friends “like” or share will show up in designated areas of relevant search results. So, what does this mean for search providers, marketers and most importantly, users?

For social media marketers, one of the most significant impacts will be that this partnership will make even more valuable social equity like Facebook fans or “likes”. These now will not only impact brands’ Facebook profiles but also their ability to show up in search results. So, instead of keywords, relevant content or other SEO-related tactics, a brand’s social “popularity” will drive them to the top of search results. This makes Facebook engagement ads — and other tactics that drive people to “like” your page — that much more important.

In the search market, this move does differentiate Bing from Google, although it is unclear how much of an impact it will have, or whether Google has anything up its sleeve to counter (I’m betting they do). Google has hinted that they have a solution for social search, and they do not seem worried about this new partnership, but they have not given any clues or specifics.  

And how will the partnership affect users? Will it improve or harm the search experience? It’s hard to say. It could change the way people search, and the way they make purchase decisions, based on friends’ likes and dislikes. But critics say that in the battle to win the targeted ad war and increase advertising revenue, search providers are sacrificing search result quality.  John C. Dvorak of PC Magazine lays out this scenario:

“Here’s what is going to happen. You are going to search for the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, and the advertising delivery modeler, which would normally find some random advertisement for memorial information or Jeffersonian memorabilia or who knows what, will now look at your Facebook information, see that you went to Jefferson High School and assume you are obviously looking up something in regards to the school. If the engine is worth a powder, it will do the math and discover that your class is having a their 40th annual high school reunion, and the ad server will hopefully display ads for party favors, event planning and other related items. Thus, target ads would be based on multiple factors.”

He goes on to say that it could work under some circumstances, but most likely will produce strange and somewhat funny search results, eventually deteriorating to merely serving you ads based on things you said were your favorites on Facebook.

One other important thing to note regarding user experience is that this new feature will be an opt-in, with a focus on privacy. From Bing’s blog:

"You will be notified that we will be enhancing your Bing experience before we actually do it, with an opportunity to say "disable" or to go and learn more before you decide if you want to take advantage of the feature. In addition, people will only see Facebook profile search results for people in their Facebook network when signed into Facebook.”

So, why did Facebook choose Bing? Why not Google? There are many reasons, and most are related to efforts to be competitive with Google. Facebook is more determined to become the next Google, rather than partner with them. Bing is willing to take risks to chip away at Google’s dominant market share. This partnership gives both companies a new competitive advantage against the search behemoth.

And what’s next in the battle for social supremacy? I would be willing to bet on a social offering from Google. There have been rumors about something called “Google Me”, but not many clear details exist. Another possibility is that social search could be bypassed completely by some new form of social web browser. Socially connecting a web experience at the highest level (the browser) would be seamless and user-friendly, allowing users to sign in one time to access all of their personalized accounts and services. Google could transform Chrome into something like this, or a new social web browser could emerge. It’s anybody’s guess right now, but it will be fun to watch the market continue to change and evolve until someone wins and becomes the dominant social player.