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Bing Focuses On Entertainment With New Features

Microsoft's search engine, Bing, is enhancing its searches for an area of interest to lots of Southern California firms--entertainment and media content. According to Bing, it has released a new version of its site which focuses on music, gaming, movies, and TV. The search engine said one of the biggest investments is in entertainment, particularly navigating and finding what you are looking for from content on the web.

Among the new features being launched on Bing is the ability to search for an find music lyrics; search for photos, videos and other information about musical acts; ability to purchase and download music from Zune, iTunes, and Amazon.com; searching and playing of casual games directly from within Bing; and finding and watching of TVs and movie information. The Bing team said that it has brought together a "very comprehensive collection" of full length TV episodes, including HD content, which can be viewed from the search engine. On the movie front, Bing said it will provide movie reviews, playtimes, nearby traffic, and other information about movies.

Navigating and searching online entertainment information has been a perpetual theme of Southern California startups, with the latest firms focused on the area being Los Angeles-based Clicker.com, with its online video programming guides, Los Angeles-based Hulu with its television streaming, Beverly Hills-based OvGuide, the online video guide site backed by GeoCities founder David Bohnett, not to mention MySpace and its frequent forays into online entertainment. Bing's latest features are also very similar to the original iteration of Biggerboat, the prior venture of Adam Lilling, now an advisor behind the Launchpad LA effort.