Contentinople - Erin Barker - News Bits: Microsoft Spreads the Word About Bing

Written by Erin Barker

Friday, June 5. 2009 at 10:50 AM EDT Post a comment

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Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is busy spending $80 million to $100 million to make sure users find out about Bing, its recently unveiled search engine. Aside from traditional ads, the software giant is also shelling out for product placement inside TV shows and on Hulu LLC , in its quest to compete with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).

On 8 p.m. Monday, a telethon-style, hour-long commercial for Bing called "Bing-a-thon" will air on Hulu. So, you ask, why in God's name would anyone watch such a thing?

The program will star Saturday Night Live's Jason Sudeikis, G4's Olivia Munn, and, naturally, comedian Fred Willard -- because what would a commercial be without him?
Perhaps more compelling: those viewers who tune in to the "Bing-athon" will be able to watch other Hulu TV shows and movies commercial free, The New York Times reports (though it doesn't say for how long).

Bing will also be placed into several NBC Universal shows, such as upcoming summer series The Philanthropist, starting June 24, and Late Show With Jimmy Fallon -- which is great because " 'Bing' sounds like a Jimmy Fallon word" anyway, NBCU's Ben Silverman says. [Ed. note: Ben, see this Jon Stewart report.]

Bing's "Fast Forward" ad campaign will appear during MTV Networks shows like The Daily Show With Jon Stewart starting this Friday.

In other news:

Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s Steve Jobs is on track to return to the company this month, after going on medical leave in January in order to deal with a hormone imbalance. "He was one real sick guy," a source told The Wall Street Journal. "Fundamentally he was starving to death over a nine-month period. He couldn't digest protein. [But] he took corrective action."

WSJ suggests that Jobs could be making his big return at Apple's annual software developers' conference next week in San Francisco -- possibly to introduce the new iPhone himself.

Speaking of rumor and speculation about the introduction of the new iPhone... Unofficial Apple blog TUAW has reported that it will be called the iPhone Video. This jibes with some earlier reports that the device would "make home movie-making mainstream."

Tags: Advertising, Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, Product Launch, Search, Technology, Video

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