Microsoft's (MSFT) Bing has recently added a new feature called Price Predictors to its travel searches, which automatically suggest flights based on the best air fares -- and even recommends if you should buy now or hold off for a better price based on how fares are trending. For flexible travelers, suggestions are offered as one types in the search bar. We believe this will have an impact on companies like Expedia (EXPE), the largest U.S. online travel agency by booking volumes, and challenge Google's (GOOG) move into the travel search.

Google (GOOG) found itself in the news spotlight Tuesday morning. First, the company announced that it is going to make a substantial offer to purchase coupon site Groupon. The other news is that the company now faces a formal investigation from European Union antitrust regulators following complaints from several search providers that Google has abused its "dominant position."

The EU stated, "The Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services." Back in February, Google reported that a British site (Foundem) and a French legal search engine (ejustice.fr) both accused the company of demoting their sites in Web search results through its search algorithm. The two sites state that this took place because they are rivals.

Google's (GOOG) problems in China have been well-publicized in recent years. The world's most populous country and its own Baidu.com search engine have managed to stave off Google to a minority market share. At the same time, the Chinese government has been no friend of the world's leading search engine, requesting censored results in comparison to Google's "all information is free" stance. So, Google stands prepared to leave China for good.

Microsoft (MSFT) has been touting its "decision engine" Bing since this past summer, and it recently became the standard search engine underneath Yahoo!'s (YHOO) massive user database. Although Bing has been well-received and grew almost immediately after being released, Google (GOOG) has finally quashed some of the enthusiasm by increasing its market share for Internet search in November back above 70%.

Google's share rose to 71.6%, an increase of 1.4% from the prior month. While that may sound small, a single percent in Internet search market share can be hundreds of thousands more searches (or tens of millions). At the same time, both Microsoft's Bing and Yahoo! declined in November. All this according to web metric firm Hitwise.

Google (GOOG) may be going after real-time search, but Microsoft (MSFT) isn't following. The company said on Tuesday that it doesn't see a pressing need to integrate with social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to deliver real-time results. According to Adam Sohn, director of Bing, Microsoft's search engine, "We're focused on our customers, not the competition."

Real-time search involves taking the freshest updates from social media platforms as soon as they are posted and including them in search results. For Google, the search engine segment leader by a mile, this has been a priority. In addition to Facebook and Twitter, Google has also inked an agreement with Yahoo! (YHOO).

It's now official: Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo! (YHOO) are in cahoots to take on search engine giant Google (GOOG). The new search partnership inked by the two companies still needs to secure regulatory approval, but the talks that began in late July are merely a step away from reality now.

Microsoft and Yahoo! expect to pass this final step early next year. If this happens, the muscle behind Yahoo! search will be Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Often, we confuse winning with being the best. This isn't always the case. There are plenty of ways to get ahead when you don't have the top product on the market. The smoke-filled backroom meetings may be a thing of the past, but the net effect lingers. This is exactly what went down, according to a Reuters report, when Microsoft (MSFT) had a chat with News Corp (NWS).

Microsoft suggested a relationship with News Corp which would involve the latter's yanking its news sites from Google (GOOG) ... for a fee, of course. This would cost the search engine giant -- which is also a news aggregation giant -- access to some hefty publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Sun and the New York Post.

Twitter calls Google (GOOG) a "good role model," but says it isn't ready to rush down the road to advertising.

Nonetheless, an ad-based revenue model is something that cofounder Biz Stone says they "will be looking to do down the line." But, for now, he continues, Twitter is focused on "creating value for our users." For now, revenue generation ideas are being put on paper, "and we're definitely going to get to them," Stone says.

Michael Moe knows how to make headlines: Talk about Twitter and predictably people will bite (I'm proof of that). He led the team at NeXt Up Research that calculated the value of the micro blogging service and arrived at $526 million to $674 million -- half what Twitter is generally believed to be worth.

Really?

The team estimates that Twitter will generate revenues of $114 million to $134 million in 2013. In 2014, Twitter is expected to post revenues of $126 million to $148 million. This is far more conservative than the valuation implied by the company's most recent round of venture capital investment, which puts the company's worth at more than $1 billion.

Unless you already have a major foothold in the search engine market – or an amazing, disruptive technology that can make the world take notice – there isn't much point in staying. Competing with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is hard enough, even when you're Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) or Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) ... and, apparently, when you're IAC/InterActive Corp (NASDAQ: IACI). Barry Diller is ready to give up Jeeves, but only if asked nicely.

Diller's presence in the search space is Ask.com, ranked #4 behind Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing. With a substantial gap between first and second, fourth barely registers at all. Ask.com has only a 2% U.S. market share, according to Hitwise, more than 60 percentage points behind the industry leader.