Microsoft is constantly adding new features to its Bing search site, such as last week when it introduced personalized cards on its front page. Today, the company revealed that Bing will now attempt to predict the winners of some reality competition TV shows in the U.S.
The new feature, called naturally Bing Predictions, is described on the website"s blog as being based on both search strings as well as input from social media services like Facebook and Twitter. Microsoft states:
The central idea behind the direct approach is that winners and losers correspond to popularity. In broad strokes, we define popularity as the frequency and sentiment of searches combined with social signals and keywords. Placing these signals into our model, we can predict the outcome an event with high confidence.
The formula is being used first on shows like American Idol, Dancing With The Stars and The Voice. Microsoft says that, using The Voice as an example, their predictions on who will win on Bing take into account factors such as regional preferences and the past popularity of contestants.
While Bing Predictions is launching with reality TV shows, Microsoft hints strongly that it will expand in the future to cover other events, such as U.S. elections. That could potentially be very interesting, especially for political candidates who might use such a feature to see how they are doing in a campaign.
Source: Microsoft | Image via Microsoft