Social media metrics company Klout is making a move into the social question-and-answer space and is getting some distribution help from Bing to make it happen.
Klout, a platform which measures your social media influence, today introduced Klout Experts. Here’s how it works: Klout “experts,” or those who have heavy influence in certain areas like technology and food, will be able to answer questions like “What’s the best way to care for tulips?” or, “What’s the best mascara for long lashes?”
Klout will then choose the best answers, and that’s where Bing comes into play. Those 300 character responses will appear on the top of Bing search results when users search for answers (see above screenshot).
Klout is starting out by introducing this new feature to 15 percent of Klout users and will continue to roll it out. It’s an idea that will help Klout build its overall value, and also help Bing with better social-media influenced search results.
The partnership builds on a “strategic investment” in Klout Microsoft made last fall, signing a multi-year agreement in hopes boosting its social media street cred. Klout information previously showed up on the right-hand social panel, but now, Klout may appear front and center.
Time will tell if this helps Microsoft gain ground on Google’s massive lead in the search engine industry. The monthly U.S. search stats from comScore came out for March a few weeks ago and it showed Google with 67.1 percent of the search market share. Microsoft only has 16.9 percent, a number that’s been growing, albeit slowly.
Microsoft, meanwhile, continues to bash Google with its “Scroogled” campaign, with the latest bombardment focusing on privacy issues with the Google Play Store.
More info on Klout Experts can be found on the company’s blog here.
Previously on GeekWire: Missing Google Reader? Bing updates News app with RSS support, offline reading
