Bing adds free streaming music, movies, TV and games

Taken directly from the press release:

As the content on the web has exploded, it has become difficult to navigate and find what you are looking for. In the field of entertainment, 76 percent of people use search to help find and navigate their entertainment options online, but only 10 percent say they have a trusted place to go.

So we see a great opportunity to help customers make important entertainment decisions -- from deciding what movie to buy or see, which TV shows to watch online or on your TV, what music to listen to, how to find and safely play your favorite casual games – Bing is making a first step today to help make entertainment on the web easy and fun, so you spend less time searching for entertainment and more time doing the stuff you love.

Working with key groups inside Microsoft that have deep entertainment heritage, we’ve made significant investments in four key areas: Music, Gaming, Movies and TV. Our focus was on making it easy – if you can type in a search box, you can have a great entertainment experience on Bing. Or, if you prefer a browsing, discovery oriented experience, also make that easy to, just visit http://www.bing.com/entertainment.

Here’s a look at what’s launching today.

Music: Answers, Lyrics, 5 million free plays.

People love music. In particular, folks want more than just a song or artist, they want a fuller experience around the music they love. Over 70 percent of people look for lyrics online. Whether you want to get ready to kill it in karaoke or just rock it in the shower, it’s now easy to safely find lyrics to all in one place.

Lyrics

We didn’t stop at lyrics. In addition to the full Bing answers experience where you can get photos, videos, and even tour dates for your favorite acts, we partnered with our friends at Zune, and are now able to offer full-length streaming for more than 5 million songs. You get a single play of every song in this 5 million song catalog, and after that 30 second previews. So you can really get into the music you love. When it’s time to buy, we’ll offer you the ability to purchase and download songs from Zune, iTunes and Amazon.com MP3.

Gaming: Search, Click, Play.

In the gaming realm, people go to the web for a few key tasks. They want to choose which games to buy, become a better gamer by finding cheats and walkthroughs, and find and play casual games online in a safe and easy manner. Working with some of the best data sources out there, we now provide detailed information on over 35,000 games, including in depth reviews, cheats and walkthroughs for all your favorite games.

Working with the Microsoft Games team we offer nearly 100 of the most popular casual games online safely from right within Bing. Just Search, Click. Play . So you can now search for your favorite casual game, and with one click, be playing the game. This is cool for a couple of reasons. First, it’s easy. Second, hosting the games inline means you can be sure they are actually games and not malware. Finally, the Microsoft Games team included some fun social features that allow you to actually invite friends from your social network to play with you right from the game.

TV: The Shows You Love, A Click Away

Like most people, we love TV. We know from research that people spend 60 hours watching TV online video every single month. What’s more amazing is that more than 30% of people watch all of their TV episodes online, and over 60% of people have used a search engine to look for full-length TV shows online.

With Bing, we’ve brought together a very comprehensive collection of full length TV episodes and visually organized them so it’s easy to find what you are looking for and start watching. With thousands of episodes from over 1500 shows including lots of HD content, watching your favorite shows online is easier than ever before. And if you are one of those people who watch TV on an actual TV, we’re pulling in guide information to help you easily find what’s on in your area from your service provider, so you can make sure you are on the couch or setting your DVR to catch your favorite shows.

Movies: Plan the perfect night out.

Going to see a movie turns out to be a bit more complex than you might imagine. That’s why 90% of people turn to search to help them find movies information. What time is the movie playing? Which theater? Where does one park? What’s traffic like right now? Is the movie any good – what do reviewers say? What do my friends say about it? What does the Twitterverse say?

Bing brings together all of the information and tools you need to get to the movie stress free and have a great night out. Reviews from the pros, real time Twitter and Facebook sentiment, real time traffic information and directions, nearby restaurants and even parking information from Bing Maps make it simple to spend less time searching and more time doing.