While Google’s tactic seems to be to spread further and faster, their competition is doing everything in their power to safeguard their corners of the search engine world. This is done by careful selection of features to focus on and a willingness to pour everything into that small grouping of products. For Bing, these areas include sports, maps, and entertainment. To better keep the entertainment audience, Bing has just released a new lineup of TV Listings features.
The official additions were announced on the Bing Blog, where they summarized the feature as allowing you to “do a quick web search and find when your favorite show will be on next.” However, their video on the subject (which features the wonderful example of a Gossip Girls search) gives further details.
When you do a search for any moderately well-known TV show, a new widget will appear on the Bing homepage. That widget will give you a quick snapshot of upcoming episodes, but it will also provide a link to the Bing TV page. This page provides you with a synopsis of the show, a rundown of all the released episodes, a list of the actors and characters of the show, and more. Additional links on the page can take you to additional resources, including official show pages on the web. The most important new feature, though, is the time and channel listings.
By associating your zip code with your Bing searches, you can get results for local stations playing your favorite shows, in addition to seeing what nationwide cable channels will be airing. You will also be able to find which episode will be aired. With over 2000 locally-oriented listings available, there should be very few areas that won’t be able to take advantage of this feature.
