Digital Week in Review: Microsoft Beats Google with Social Search Results

AT&T Puts Ratings and Reviews on Facebook Page; Clickz
AT&T has joined the handful of companies enabling consumers to submit product ratings and reviews through Facebook. The new capability, shared by Microsoft, Adobe, Benefit Cosmetics and a handful of others, is provided through customer feedback specialist Bazaarvoice.
The Takeaway: Ninety-two percent of U.S. Internet users said they read customer product reviews online, and 46 percent said those reviews influence their purchases, according to an eMarketer report from August. Hosting reviews in a venue where fans are the first to review a particular product seems as though it is a further means to guarantee positive reviews.

Microsoft Beats Google with Social Search Results; Techie Insider Microsoft and their Bing search engine have been making changes to their interfaces to include more social networking items to differentiate themselves from Google. This has resulted in differences in the usage of Bing. Analysts, from IDC and Forrester research, have awarded Bing the social search capabilities over Google.
The Takeaway: Google has missed the opportunity to take advantage of the “Like” feature and opened the door for Bing to grab the social search results. Many have been taking advantage of the results and there have been positive comments on the Bing changes.

Facebook Extends Friendship Hand to China; TechWeek
Industry analysts say that Facebook is going to face tough competition from state-supported, well-supported companies, as it is going to come into the market at a time when 68% of the market has been taken-up by sites such as Ren-Ren. There is fierce competition in the market and which has already proven challenging for companies like Google.
The Takeaway: Extending Facebook to include the largest population of internet users in the world is a strategic move. Think Facebook was everywhere before? Just wait. Prepare for world domination.

Apple Sued Over Privacy; The Washington Post
Apple is facing a lawsuit over smartphone app privacy in a federal court in San Jose, Calif. The suit accuses Apple of violating federal computer fraud and privacy laws, claiming that “some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users’ location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views.”
The Takeaway: Fortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it)  privacy lawsuits will not have too much of an effect on the overall reputation of Apple.