Bing rolled out a new design for its social sidebar feature Tuesday, an update it hopes will make finding friends relevant to your search easier to do based on what those people have shared on the web.
“At Bing, we realize that sometimes the most useful information doesn’t come from ten blue links,” the Bing Team posted on its official blog. “By bringing together knowledge from social networks with traditional web results, Bing is the only engine that saves you time allowing you to make decisions with greater confidence based on the input of other people.”
Social results from networks such as Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, and Klout are displayed on the right side of the screen, just as they have been in the past. With the updated design you no longer needed to hover over a friend to see additional content, and a "+" sign lets you dive a little deeper on results you’re particularly interested in.
So, a search for “New Orleans” might bring up your friend’s Facebook photos from the city in the sidebar. Photos that you’ll be able to see, at least in thumbnail form, right on the screen without any extra work.
Results on the sidebar are also now left-justified, making for less blank space on the page.
Bing’s social sidebar updates will be rolling out to users over the next few days. Let us know what you think about the update in the comments.