Windows 7: Microsoft invests in Klout; integrates data into Bing

Microsoft is making a "strategic investment" of an undisclosed size in social-media vendor Klout, company officials announced on its Bing Community blog on September 27.



On Bing, Microsoft is going to display Klout data -- including a person's Klout score and topics they are "influential" about -- on the new Bing Sidebar pane for those users who can and want to see this information. And on Klout, "highlights from Bing will begin surfacing in the 'moments' section of some people's Klout profiles," a Microsoft spokesperson said.

This new partnership is related to Microsoft's ongoing work to integrate social-search results into its Bing search engine via the sidebar panel, the same way that it does with Quora and foursquare.