Unlike Google, which generally returns links to mere web sites, Bing crawls listings at review services like Yelp.com and CitySearch. It then summarizes the results and displays a scorecard for each, rating things like service, drinks, food, wait time, lunch offerings, and so on, all laid out in a neat comparative table.

Bing is also great at finding travel information. Activating the travel tab puts you in a full-service reservation system. From there you can book tickets and even get tips about when to buy to get the best price.

The early version of Bing has some issues. But, if used for certain queries, Bing could be a very nice compliment to Google:

On the positive side, we discovered Bing does much more than search for relevant links. It retrieves and processes data, and renders it smartly. That makes finding a great restaurant or an airline ticket, a snap.

But the service is far from perfect. Beautiful data mash-ups coexist side-by-side with perplexing interface choices that make it hard to find the best features. Meanwhile, actual search results were inaccurate in some cases, and disappointing overall in the local search category, one of the areas Microsoft hopes to make its biggest splash.

Users Over 55 Quitting Facebook: The Baby Boom Times Over? — It appears that people over 55 are trying Facebook and not really liking it:

Between November 2008 and February 2009, the baby boomer set (age 55-65) was one of the fastest growing segments on the social network, up 175.3% for females and 137.8% for males, according to the statistics. But that user boom was short-lived, and those users aren’t returning in the same numbers.

In April and May there were actually 650,000 less users over the age of 55 on Facebook than the previous two months — the only age demographic where the site experienced a decrease in users over that period. Facebook grew by over 4% each month over the past two months, according to the blog’s measurements, which are based on data from Facebook’s advertiser tools, but its inability to hold the attention of its older users is interesting.

Social media is still a young(er) persons game. Perhaps the issue isn’t with social media, but rather the fact that most social media sites were made for younger people (Facebook was originally college only). What if someone created a social network aimed at baby boomers?

Is this a segment that newspapers could tap into? Boomers are still very loyal to newspapers.

Typekit aims to make Web fonts suck less — One of the biggest problems with Web design is font support. Web browsers support very few fonts, and different browsers and computers support different fonts. This severely limits typographic options for Web designers, and also makes it hard to predict how Web sites will look on people’s computers.

There are some not-so-desirable workarounds like putting fonts into images or using Flash. Those both have large drawbacks, especially for accessibility. Typekit plans to change all of that:

That’s where Typekit comes in. We’ve been working with foundries to develop a consistent web-only font linking license. We’ve built a technology platform that lets us to host both free and commercial fonts in a way that is incredibly fast, smoothes out differences in how browsers handle type, and offers the level of protection that type designers need without resorting to annoying and ineffective DRM.

As a Typekit user, you’ll have access to our library of high-quality fonts. Just add a line of JavaScript to your markup, tell us what fonts you want to use, and then craft your pages the way you always have. Except now you’ll be able to use real fonts. This really is going to change web design.

Typekit launches this summer. We’ll have more after it launches.

Another Twitter expert who didn’t bother to learn — Listen, before you bash Twitter or any other new technology, at least use it first. Try to understand why people like it.

Is Twitter for everyone? No. But it can help a lot of journalists do their jobs better. To me, it’s at least worth trying.

Steve Buttry argues why news orgs should consider Twitter and why people should try Twitter first before bashing it:

Twitter does pose some threats to newspapers, though I see it as more of an opportunity. As more and more people get their news from Twitter (and not just because journalists and news sources are Twittering, but from people tweeting as they live the news and from Twitter aggregating tweets as news unfolds) and other social media, newspapers need to use these tools effectively and adjust our print products to this rapidly changing world.

Trent Reznor And Twitter Help Raise over $850,000 for Fan in Need — Nine Inch Nails’ frontman Trent Reznor and fans have helped raise more than $850,000 for a fan who needs a heart transplant. The fan was denied a transplant, but through the power of Twitter and social media, Reznor and company were quickly able to get the word out and start raising money.

Very important part of this story was Trent Reznor’s Twitter account, which he used vigorously to draw attention to this cause. Together with his 571,839 motivated followers, many of whom also tweeted and retweeted about this campaign, they’ve shown how powerful a tool Twitter can be.

Still doubt the power of social media?

You can send us tips on social media via e-mail (connect [at] patthorntonfiles [dot] com), Twitter and our Publish2 group. If you submit a tip, we’ll credit you and link to your Web site/Twitter feed/blog or site of choice.

Yesterday we had an in-depth post about those changes and why Buttry believes they are necessary. In addition, we ask Buttry some of the whys below:

Alana: The Cedar Rapids Gazette is undergoing a radical reorganization that no newspaper company has ever done before. What are you most worried about?

Buttry: One of them is revenue. I am very confident that we are innovating wisely and aggressively on the content side, but I am not as closely tied to the side that works with revenue. I trust that the team that works on revenue is reorganizing and moving and hiring to innovate as aggressively as the content team, but I, personally, can’t see the immediate progress yet.

The other thing related to that is that we could do everything right with revenue in terms of changing how we work, think, and going beyond, and yet we are in a terrible economy. In other words, we may have the answer but right now may just be the wrong time. Not to mention, Cedar Rapids and other smaller communities were burdened by a recent flooding disaster that created huge economic impacts. These types of events have huge impacts and are completely out of our control.

My second worry is that workplace cultures are tremendously difficult to change. I think we are making significant progress in changing it, but work habits and way of thinking of the newsroom will need to change dramatically to make our new approach work. While I see that they are changing, I worry that they wont change as quickly or as dramatically enough.

Alana: How did the idea for this whole reorganization come about? Was there an existing model that inspired you? Whose idea was it?

Buttry: It was a marriage of ideas. I came up with the vision. When I was at the American Institute I developed an image of what I thought newsrooms could look like, which became the C3 – Complete Community Connection. Once I met Chuck Peters (CEO of Gazette Communications) I could see he was onto the “how” of my “what.”

Alana: With the new structure in place, will the reporters be beatblogging?

Buttry: Yes, but in a different sense than what exists presently. We are separating our content operation entirely from our product operation. Our reporters will be blogging, but they are going to be multitasking entrepreneurial journalists. (I don’t use the term blogger just because has gotten a more narrow meaning in the public as a “guy with a lot of opinions in his pajamas in his basement saying, ‘Here is what I think about the world.”) They are going to be more than beat reporters. One of the things we’re doing is changing terminology in order to change thinking. So, we tell them: You own this topic, you are responsible for generating content on this topic. Some of that content will be words, video, still pictures, data, etc. Colleagues will be there to help, but essentially it’s all up to you.

Alana: Sounds like The Gazette is on to something revolutionary. By what date should we expect to see some sort of “proof of success,” if you will?

Buttry: By April 6 we will have a lot of our transition completed. I will be disappointed if we don’t have a full operation going by May. I’m sure there’ll be shakedown period where we do stupid things, while we try to figure things out. By next Fall we should have a lots of success stories and a few stories of failure.

Alana: Do you expect other newspaper companies to follow your lead?

Buttry: We’re in a copycat industry, and we’re in one that’s desperate for solutions. So, yes, particularly if we’re successful in the revenue side. We’re already getting a lot of attention across the web and on the news; it would be surprising if no one thought we were on to something good.