It was a terrible top story put on MSNBC.com about a Memphis mother found dead and stuffed inside a motel mattress (even worse is it had been rented out several times before the ghastly discovery).
But what struck a chord for me was when I noticed that in Microsoft’s efforts to synergize its online news site with its search engine, Bing – meant to compete with Google- they may have tied links together that were less than tasteful.
In the article, keywords can be pointed to with your arrow to pull up a Bing search display. So when a woman is found inside a mattress, people can point to that word and see where to buy a lovely mattress. Given the context in which the mattress in the story was used, one wouldn’t think readers would be inspired by this type of advertising.
What’s worse is that this woman had the misfortune of being named Sony, though that might be an advantage to the electronics company and Microsoft from an advertising perspective, considering Sony (the company) has nothing to do with the story.
Check the link below and see what can’t be bought out of this tragedy.
