Microsoft has announced a new collaboration with the Fox News channel that will see its Bing Pulse online polling tool become a regular part of the network"s nightly news show, Special Report With Bret Baier. Bing Pulse was first used in February by Fox News to gauge viewer reaction to the U.S. State of the Union address.
In an email press release sent to Neowin, Microsoft says that Bing Pulse will be a part of the Special Report program three times a week. A pilot program which was held during August on Friday nights was considered a success, according to the press release, with millions of votes casts by viewers. There were as many as 60,000 votes per minute generated during the pilot program.
Microsoft says that people who want to participate in the Bing Pulse segment of Special Report can go to https://bing.com/politics during the show which begins at 6 pm Eastern Time. As the panel of pundits discuss various political issues, viewers can go online to share their feelings about the issues being raised by the panel. Microsoft says:
The live count of the number of “pulses,” or votes, is shown as a line graph of how users react to language and issues throughout the discussion that is visible on screen. In addition to measuring the sentiment of the audience about the conversation, the Bing Pulse also provides an intensity score, which highlights the moments on the panel segment when the greatest number of viewers voted at the same time. Final results are reported at the end of the program.
The new collaboration between Microsoft and Fox News comes over a year after Microsoft cut ties with NBC over their ownership of the MSNBC.com news website.
Source: Microsoft email press release | Image via Fox News