I didn't have much luck getting social results from high-profile people, which appear in the sidebar as “People Who Know.” Though a search for “movies” triggered a list of famous Twitter uses such as Roger Ebert and Peter Travers, searches for “music” and “Diablo III” returned nothing.

Bing is obviously not digging too deeply into past Tweets. It's only bringing up people who might be experts on a narrow set of topics. That's a problem, because while I'm unlikely to ever search for “movies,” I search for specific films quite often. You won't get any expert results by searching for movie titles.

If you're totally against social search, you can minimize the sidebar by clicking the circular arrow button near the top right side of the screen. A small gray strip will still appear on the right side of all search results, and if you've signed into Facebook through Bing, thumbnail icons of suggested friends will still show up on that sidebar.

It's worth noting that Google allows you to hide personalized search results completely by clicking the globe icon on the top-right side of the screen. So although the new Bing sidebar isn't as intrusive for those who want to use it on occasion, it's just slightly more of a nuisance for those who have no interest at all.