A center "snapshot" column permits the user to interact with businesses from the search page. If the user searching for seafood restaurants hovers on a link to a particular restaurant, the column pops up, offering a map, available reservations and links to reviews. Integration with OpenTable makes it possible to make reservations without leaving the search page.

Bing's approach to social search is in stark contrast to Google's, which brings social results into the same list with traditional algorithmic results. The Bing interface previewed Thursday separated social content into a separate column with a background of a different color.

"You've started to see social be injected into the purity of the Web results, and nobody likes that," said Derrick Connell, vice president of program management at Microsoft.

The "people who know" section of the sidebar will explicitly rank people by their expertise in a particular area. Company representatives repeated several times how difficult a task that is, but emphasized that the social content will continue to improve over time.

"The experience won't be perfect, but the most important thing is that we make the leap and then the feedback cycle begins," Lu said.