It seems that Microsoft’s search engine Bing has been cleverly adding on a few useful features as it bids to grow its share of the search market.

One recent development is the new feature that makes it easier for users to find entertainment information online. The Entertainment section on Bing now includes extra gaming, video streaming and film information. While this might not seem like a huge move, it’s exactly these kind of “extras” that bring visitors back to a search engine time and again.

As Microsoft states: “76% of people use search to help find and navigate entertainment options online. But there’s lots of room for improvement — and for Bing to make entertainment its niche. Only 10% say they have a trusted place to go to find entertainment answers.”

Let’s see what Google does next. And then what other tricks Bing has up its sleeve. The search engine battle continues!

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Following its success in American, Microsoft has announced that it plans to launch the travel search engine Bing Travel into the UK.

Launched a year ago in the US, Bing Travel provides price comparisons for air fares and hotel rates. It also predicts airfare and hotel rates based on the time of year, telling travellers when it’s the best time to get the best deal.

It was Microsoft’s $115 million acquisition of travel website Farecast last year that gave the company the technology to launch Bing Travel. Microsoft is planning to do a similar deal with an existing provider in the UK.

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While Google still reigns, Yahoo and Microsoft have been waging a huge battle in the search engine industry.

Just last year Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s offer to buy the company and many people seemed to give up on the search engine. Then Carol Bartz took over at Yahoo and expectations changed again.

While some people believe it would be an impossible task to make much of a gain on Google, others are wondering if Bartz might now, in fact, do a deal with Microsoft. Or perhaps all the changes that she is initiating in the company, including a rebrand, will be enough to turn the fortunes of Yahoo around.

Then there are Microsoft’s own efforts. The company recently launched Bing and although it is still too early to tell, initial data reports have been promising. Nielsen Online found that on Bing’s first day it came close to surpassing Yahoo Search for the second spot.

It’s widely believed that Microsoft will need to continue to innovate the user experience if they want to grow Bing’s audience but things are looking positive for the search engine company just now.

And what about Google? The other search engines do have a long way to go to catch up with the leader but there are reports that Google insiders are a little unsettled by Bing.

Only time will tell – but it would seem that the Battle for Search Engine Supremacy is only now heating up.

Microsoft is hoping that its new style of “simpler but smarter” searches will be enough to take on the big boys of the search engine world.

Re-branding as Bing.com, Microsoft believes the new search engine will offer strong competition for both Google and Yahoo.

Bing claims to make searching more relevant to the user by understanding the intention of searches, and grouping more related information to the original query.

So, for example, searches for a product will not only offer info about the item but will also link to reviews, accessories and online shops.

Microsoft’s plan is to reduce the amount of clicking a user has to do to find specific and related information.

Bing.com will go live first in the US and launches in beta elsewhere. Currently Google has more than 64% of the search market in the US, followed by Yahoo at 20% and Microsoft at 8.2%.