Bing: Is That an Acronym for “Bing Is Not Google”?
by John Paczkowski
Posted on June 1, 2009 at 7:14 AM PT
Microsoft’s new search engine Bing–which debuted at our D7 conference last week–unexpectedly went live this morning ahead of its scheduled June 3 launch date and it’s already done much to distinguish itself from Microsoft’s previous efforts in search.
Certainly, there’s far more verb potential in Bing than “Microsoft Live Search,” the service it’s replacing. And–beyond all this silliness about Bing’s prowess in adult entertainment queries (ever tried a similar search in Google (GOOG) or Yahoo (YHOO)?)–there’s a lot to impress. Bing is fast–very fast, actually. Its local results are robust, accurate and usable.
This search for “pizza near 94117,” for example, returns not just a list of pizza parlor homepages, but phone numbers, directions, reviews, coupons and bird’s eye maps as well. Video search is deep and the ability to further calibrate it by length, screen size and resolution is a nice touch. It offers a 411 service similar to Google’s.
And it’s UI is sleek, although the choice of hot air balloon background is begging for a wisecrack. There’s plenty of hot air in Microsoft’s claim that Bing is a “decision engine, designed to empower people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to important decisions.” That said, the engine does seem to be delivering, at least initially, on that promise.
Question is: Can Bing boost Microsoft’s market share in search from the mid-single digits to something more respectable?
Comments
Just tried both Bing and The Google with “auto repair 80222″.
Posted by Dave Barnes at June 1st, 2009 at 8:11 amBing’s results are awful.
And, Bing thinks I live in the foothills about 25 west of where I actually am.
Dave must live in Kentucky or somewhere else in the boonies because for me Bing points to 8 auto repair places within a few miles with maps. I particularly like the restaurant finder feature and the easy to find reviews.
Posted by Mark Ashton at June 1st, 2009 at 9:12 amI found it to work pretty well, Dave. It actually found a coffee shop within walking distance of my home — and the town in which I live can hardly be considered a major metropolitan area.
Posted by John Paczkowski at June 1st, 2009 at 10:01 amActually, I live in Denver, CO.
For me, the top ad on Bing is for a car repair place in Smyrna, GA. #2 is Dunedin, FL.
Bing has a long way to go.
Posted by Dave Barnes at June 1st, 2009 at 10:01 amIn my tests so far, I kind of find it OK. Not sure if that is good enough to take share from Google, but I can see going to it first.
Posted by Warren Habib at June 1st, 2009 at 1:01 pmBing actually stands for Ballmer is not Gates.
Posted by Sydney Duodenum at June 2nd, 2009 at 3:00 pm