Microsoft kills Outings personalized travel app

Back in 2017, Microsoft first started testing the Outings personalized travel app. Later it became part of Microsoft Garage project. Outings app offer personalized recommendations and help users save their finds on a bucket list which can be shared with others. Microsoft today announced that it will sunset Outings app. Based on the insights collected over the past two years, Microsoft will bring improvements to Bing travel experiences on mobile and desktop.

• Enhanced Search Result UX Now users will see attractions arranged in a carousel with better images, brief descriptions, and different topics synthesizing what the attractions are popular for.
• Relevance The data pipeline fine-tuned in Outings powers more relevant search for destinations and attractions. Since the pipeline gathers meta-data from millions of travel blogs, the experience can surface the most popular attractions in particular areas
• Improved Query Triggering Additional key terms in the search query that will cue these search result experiences. For example, you don’t just have to search the Space Needle; you can search things to do in Seattle or things to do near me

Oswaldo Ribas, Program Manager working on the Bing Attractions and Outdoors team, mentioned that Outings work will surface in a number of places including the search results page and the Maps vertical. The Outings mobile app on iOS and Android will be killed on July 31, 2019.

Source: Bing