Just as Bing wants to be your number one destination for Winter Olympics information, they also want to be your primary source for information about the upcoming Academy Awards.
Not only does Bing have a site dedicated to the Oscars, but today they announced a partnership with The Hollywood Reporter to create the “ultimate Oscars resource guide.”
The resource guide will provide interactive features powered by Bing, including integrated search features that give users biographical information, photos and news on the nominees. You can also cast your own vote with the Bing-powered social ballot which uses crowd sourced data to generate predictive assessments of 2014 winners.
To illustrate how they will use search data to predict winners, they give an example of Jared Leto and Jonah Hill being in a tight race for Best Supporting Actor with each capturing 35 percent of searches for their roles in “Dallas Buyers Club” and “The Wolf of Wall Street”.
Based on search data, other predictions include American Hustle’s Jennifer Lawrence in the lead for Best Supporting Actress, with a commanding lead of 80 percent of the searches in her award category. Leonardo DiCaprio is predicted to win his first Oscar for his portrayal of Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street” in the Best Actor Category. DiCaprio leads with 54 percent of the searches for Best Actor with fellow nominee Christian Bale trailing behind with 20 percent of the searches.
For awards junkies, like myself, this is a fun way to make the whole experience more interactive. It’s also another great example of Bing innovating with new features in a uphill battle to capture more of the search market. Will this help? It certainly won’t hurt, and they’re now setting a precedent for us to expect more interactive features like this from them in the future.
