A lot is happening in the world of search and social and as you know State of Search is not a news-reporting site but a site that interprets the news and looks at why something is happening and what that means to you. That doesn’t mean however we are not interested in the news. In this post we will bring the top stories of what happened last week with links to articles around the web. So you will know what you’ve missed.  

Here’s what happened last week

Google Launches New Experimental Search Features

Google has long been running a number of experimental Search and Gmail field trials anybody can sign up for andis launching a few new search features

Related stories online: TechCrunch, Google+, Mashable

Count down to Christmas Eve with Google Santa Tracker

Google ‘lost’ NORAD to Microsoft but is still tracking Santa.

Related stories online: Google, Searchengineland, Business Insider, Techmeme

Google Antitrust Decision by FTC to Next Year

The FTC will make a final decision on how to resolve its 20-month antitrust investigation of Google next year

Related stories online: Bloomberg, AllThingsD, Webpronews, Techmeme

European Antitrust Case Against Google Going Towards Settlement

The European Union appears to be closer to agreement with Google about anti-trust concerns relating to search.

Related stories online: Mercury News, Business Week, Search Engine Land

New Google+ social sharing bar based on Meebo spotted

It looks like Google has begun putting its acquisition of Meebo to use after a chat bar looking very much like that of the advertising startup was spotted in the wild

Related stories online: Endgadget, The Next Web

Google Maps for iOS downloaded more than 10M times in under 48 hours 

Google launched Google Maps back into the iStore and with succes.

Related stories online: The Next Web

Bing Updates Its Image Search Results 

Microsoft updated Bing’s image search results pages with larger thumbnails and less white-space.

Related stories online: Bing, TechCrunch, Searchengineland, Webpronews

Microsoft Scrutinized by EU Privacy Watchdogs for Policy Changes

Microsoft policy changes for its Internet products are being formally examined by European data protection regulators for potential privacy issues.

Related stories online: Bloomberg, Marketingland, WebProNews

Bing Social Results Arrive on iPad

Bing started rolling out a new streamlined design for our social sidebar feature making it easier to find people who are relevant to your search based on what they’ve shared, blogged or tweeted about.

Related stories online: Bing, Searchengineland, The Next Web, Techmeme

Instagram rolls out new updates, notes temporary privacy display error

Instagram released a few updates to its iOS and Android apps and there were some privacy issue matters…

Related stories online: Gigaom, The Verge

Facebook adds drag-and-drop bulk photo uploads, tests Timeline changes

Facebook’s publisher box is going to start letting users upload multiple of photos at once by dragging and dropping.

Related stories online: Mashable, AllFacebook, Inside Facebook, Techmeme

Facebook Tests Pay-For-Delivery Messaging; Brands May Get Access Later

Facebook has started a “small experiment” in the U.S. that will let some individual users pay to make sure their messages reach other users’ Inboxes.

Related stories online: Marketingland, Wall Street Journal, AllFacebook, Engadget

Because of Christmas and New Year next week there will be no News Update next week.

Posted in News | Tags: Bing, Facebook, Google, News