Daily Tech Snippet: Monday December 15

• Facebook dumps Bing search results as it gets serious about search: Facebook has stopped including results from Microsoft's Bing search engine on its social networking site. The move, confirmed by a company spokesperson, comes as Facebook has revamped its own search offerings, introducing a tool on Monday that allows users to quickly find past comments and other information posted by their friends on Facebook. The decision may reflect the increasing importance that Facebook sees in Web search technology, a market dominated by rival Google Inc (GOOGL.O). Facebook and Microsoft have a longstanding relationship dating back to Microsoft's $240 million investment in Facebook, for a 1.6 percent stake in the company, in October 2007. As part of that deal, Microsoft provided banner ads on Facebook's website in international markets. Facebook stopped using Microsoft banner ads in 2010 as it moved to take more control of its advertising business. But Facebook, during that same time, expanded its use of Microsoft Bing search results to international versions of its service.

• Baidu said to buy stake in Uber, Boosting App in China: Baidu Inc. (BIDU) is buying a minority stake in Uber Technologies Inc., giving the car-booking company a boost as it expands in China, according to a person familiar with the matter. Uber will receive cash and non-cash assets, including Baidu’s online resources as owner of China’s biggest Internet search engine, the person said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. The investment may be worth as much as $600 million, China National Radio reported earlier. Uber is expanding in China and hiring in 14 cities, according to a July 1 LinkedIn post. Uber has been targeting customers willing to pay a premium for the luxury of tracking the vehicle’s approach, not handling local cash and finding daily newspapers and a Wi-Fi access inside the car.

• Alibaba's efforts to position 12/12 as another Singles Day (focused on Taobao) seem to have met with only mixed success: Alibaba has tried hard to position Double 12 as a similar shopping bonanza to Singles Day. Last year, it promoted the day heavily on Taobao and flooded other online and offline channels with advertisements. Taobao bought most of the internet portal traffic, and “12/12” signage saturated billboards and bus stops. After stressing that the nature of December 12 is different from November 11, Alibaba has kept the traffic and revenue results from the past two Double 12s on the down-low. The lack of numbers released has led many to believe that Double 12’s results didn’t live up to Alibaba’s initial expectations. The reason for the underwhelming sales? Hard to say for sure, but there are many theories. First off, it’s been just a month since Singles Day. Retailers’ inventory and consumers’ budgets may not be sufficient enough to take part in the 12/12 extravaganza. Also, it’s possible that the two-thirds of Taobao retailers that didn’t take part in Double 12 ran out of inventory or turned to offline sales channels for the rest of the holiday shopping season. Retail logistics make it harder for smaller companies on Taobao to be as flexible on price as the big dogs on Tmall. They also can’t offer up the same kinds of amazing bargains Chinese consumers are now accustomed to.

• Hints that Whatsapp is expanding to the web: It looks like WhatsApp might be bringing its messaging service to the web. The rumors started shortly after the the co-founder of rival messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, told TechCrunch that he thought WhatsApp was working on a web version “since they tried to hire our web dev.” While WhatsApp has yet to make any official mention of a web version of its popular messaging app, a recent discovery by the team at AndroidWorld.nl appears to back up Durov’s suspicions. Hidden inside the code of a recent WhatsApp update is the mention of “WhatsApp Web.” It’s still not definite proof, but it certainly looks like the WhatsApp team is at least exploring some sort of web functionality.

• India startup action: Bangalore-based Blowhorn offers an online marketplace focused on last mile logistics services: Mithun Srivatsa, director of operations, Walmart Labs, co-founded Blowhorn, an online marketplace for last mile logistics services, along with his classmate from NIT Nagpur Nikhil Shivaprasad (CTO), in November 2013. “Currently, mini-truck drivers suffer from inefficient utilisation, sometimes not getting a booking for a load to carry for a day or more. At the same time, consumers have ever-increasing needs to move things around the crowded streets of India’s major metros. We bring them together seamlessly,” said Srivatsa, CEO of Blowhorn. The Bangalore-based startup claims to be receiving a lot of demand from people buying from online classifieds sites like OLX and Quikr, as well other second hand goods groups on social media. The firm charges Rs 600 for the first hour and pro-rated every 10 minutes thereafter. Last month, the startup had raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from impact investor Unitus Seed Fund, with participation from Tim Draper, founder and managing partner of Draper Associates. While the space is new and unexplored in India, there are examples of such startups globally. In Asia, Hong Kong-based GoGoVan provides similar services and has presence in Singapore and Taiwan, besides its home city.

• SoftBank shrinks U.S. office, hurt by its Sprint investment, marking end of failed T-Mobile bid: Japan's SoftBank Corp (9984.T) will soon downsize its Silicon Valley offices, people with knowledge of the matter said, signaling the company won't revive efforts to buy T-Mobile U.S. Inc