Second-generation Microsoft Bing coming soon

Tom Krazit | Sep 14, 2009

Microsoft is getting ready to launch the next iteration of Bing, according to some wayward tweets.

Mary-Jo Foley at our sister site ZDNet spotted a few eager Twitter users spilling the beans on Bing 2.0 following Microsoft's annual company meeting, where employees were apparently given a preview of some new features that will be rolled out over the coming weeks. Some attendees had the changes coming next week, while others thought it would be more of a gradual rollout, but expect changes to Bing shortly.

What might be coming? One attendee said "imagine seeing maps plus pics from the neighborhood of a restaurant to try." That tweet has since been deleted. Another said "bing + silverlight in maps = amazing !! goodbye google." In what is likely not a coincidence, that tweet has also been deleted.

One message spotted by The Seattle P-I from Microsoft employee Luis Bitencourt-Emilio says "Bing 2.0's upcoming search visualization is pretty sexy..." It's not clear whether Microsoft is actually thinking of these changes as a version-style upgrade or a series of gradual tweaks, which seems more common in this market.

Microsoft had no official comment on the potential changes, according to ZDNet, other than saying "We're very excited about some of the new Bing features set to roll out over the next few months, but have nothing to announce today."

Via CNET.com

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