Microsoft is shedding the beta tag for its custom Bing search engine that caters to users in the United Kingdom with a localized offering. At the same time, the company is releasing Bing Maps UK and thus no longer redirecting users to Multimap.com .

Microsoft’s new Bing search engine just can’t seem to stay out of the red light district, no matter how hard they try. There’s no denying it is hands down the best porn search engine on the planet (although ChaCha is pretty good too ). But Bing also had a snafu with Google ads that showed the search engine for “pornography” queries. Google took the blame for that one (see updates to that post), and at least it only showed up for people actually querying the adult term. Now, a new controversy has popped up around a Microsoft ad unit that scrapes a page for content and then shows relevant Bing queries. The ads normally work fine. But last week Bing started showing an ad unit that contained sexually explicit terms, including at least one that I had never heard of before (the swizzle stick). Best of all, the ads were displayed on a WonderHowTo web page showing only Home & Garden content. You can see the queries that were self-generated by Bing for the ad unit in the image. This isn’t just R-rated run of the mill porn stuff. This is stuff that’s still illegal in some states. Particularly that top query. Microsoft is saying this is a bug, and they’ve taken down all of these add units on all sites until they understand what happened. The unit is supposed to scrape only the page being viewed. In this case, WonderHowTo has sexually explicit content on other areas of the site, which may be triggering the ad content. Said Microsoft’s Senior Director Online Audience Business Group Adam Sohn, who wasn’t too happy with the ad: “We are very cognizant of what we want the Bing brand to stand for, and this is not it.” My response – “well, at least it’s educational.” Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Residents of San Francisco are a bit put off by the temporary closure of the Bay Bridge this holiday weekend. For the next 2+ days, the short bridge commute between the city and the East bay is closed , forcing people to take 30 mile detours through Marin County to get to Oakland, Berkeley and beyond. This is a perfect opportunity to test the map products on the major Internet portals. Who noted the temporary closure and helped users figure out the next best route? The short answer – Google wins. Yahoo a close second, and Microsoft Bing fails in this particular test. Google Maps notes the closure, telling users “The Bay Bridge is closed from September 4 to September 8. Try dragging your route to a different path.” Yahoo also seems to know about the closure, but doesn’t mention it to users. Instead, it routes you 35 miles through Marin county and over two other bridges to get to your destination. This is useful, but without pointing out that the Bay Bridge is closed, most people will likely think it’s a glitch and simply try the easier route (and be disappointed). Microsoft Bing fails this test completely. Oblivious to the current road conditions, it blithely tells users to use the Bay Bridge to zip on over to Oakland. Thanks to Noah Veltman for the tip, and the stunning image of the Bay Bridge above was taken by Thomas Hawk . Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Have you tried out this blind search tool yet? It provides results from Google, Yahoo and Bing in three columns but doesn’t tell you which column is which search engine. You then tell it which one you think shows the best results, and you then see which answers are from which engines. I keep choosing Yahoo as the best results. A few search engine experts we’ve spoken with over the years say that users tend to think Google results are better just because they’re from Google. If you take any search engine and put the logo on top, it tests better. So Yahoo results with a Google logo will always test better than, say, Google results with the Yahoo or Bing logo. People are just used to thinking about Google as the best search. This search tool strips out all the branding, so you’re forced to really think about which results you like better. And early results showed a much more even distribution than Google’s 70% market share would suggest: Google: 44%, Bing: 33%, Yahoo: 23%. The score keeping feature was removed when people found a way to game it, but you can still run the test against yourself and see which search engine you really like the best. Too bad the one I seem to like will shortly be mothballed . The tool was created by Michael Kordahi , a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

So, Microsoft had that contest where it would feature one user’s picture on Bing for an entire day — you know, the one I was mad about because you couldn’t submit keg stand pictures . The idea behind the contest was to have users submit their best summer vacation photos to a special Facebook group, where they could then be voted on. Well, now we have a winner . And it doesn’t exactly reek of summer. The winning image (below), was one of 9,400 picture submissions. You’d think out of all of those, users would have found a more perfect summer vacation image than a giant lightning storm, but whatever, it is a good picture. The contest apparently attracted more than 13,000 unique voters. And the pictures garnered nearly 28,000 wall posts on the Facebook page. But the stat I’m really interested in is that there were over 10,000 submissions, and only 9,400 were accepted. I’d love to see those other 600+ pictures. Keg stands? The image will be featured on Bing on August 3, for the entire day. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0