Reported by Danny Sullivan | May 10, 2012

Bing announced a relaunch of its search engine today, with a big emphasis on bringing social into search. But wait! Didn’t Bing already have social as part of its search experience? Yes, but now the search engine hopes to do it better, especially by largely off-loading social elements into a new sidebar area.

The new features will appear for Bing users in the United States the coming days, taking several weeks to go live fully for everyone.

Postscript: The new Bing should now be live for everyone. If you don’t have it, see the instructions here: Bing’s New Social-Friendly Search Interface Now Live.

The New Bing

What’s in “The New Bing,” as the Microsoft post pitches it as? A three column design with Core Search, Snapshot & Sidebar panes

• Core Search loses many of the social annotations that Bing has added over the years
• Snapshot provides additional information about a particular search listing, without having to leave Bing
• Sidebar serves as a new home for social integration with search

Read more about Bing’s New features.