Microsoft sent out an announcement today about a major “improvement” to Bing’s search engine.  Now, it ties in with social networking.  Microsoft says:

Introducing the new Bing

And just like that…search goes social.
High-quality search results are just the beginning. Now only Bing brings together the best search with people from your social networks, so you can spend less time searching and more time doing. Be one of the first of your friends to try it.

And of course:

Some Bing social features are only available in the US at this time and are not compatible with all browsers

Well naturally, nobody would want to use a browser other than IE, now would they? LOL!

So why is this inane, and why am I posting about it?  My feeling is that with this new “improvement”, the search engine (at least for me) will now be pretty worthless.  Why you ask?  Simple – while social networking has it’s uses and so forth, it’s not good for everything.  If I’m searching around for techie stuff, for instance, MY network of “buddies” wouldn’t be any help.  Can you imagine asking your bowling buddy where to find a specific video driver?  In general, haven’t you noticed that there seem to be an awful lot of people in this world who are complete idiots?  Would you ask them… ANYTHING??  No, of course not.  Yet Bing assumes you would, and asks them for you.  How inane!