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Microsoft officially announces Bing.com
Update: Bing.com has opened its doors.
As expected, Microsoft has launched its revamped search service today and confirmed it has picked Bing as the branding for this new endeavor. Why that name? In their words: “You probably didn't wake up today expecting an entirely new search experience. But – Bing! – here it is.” Ok… now that we got that embarrassing piece of PR out of the way, we should note that this is not just a rebranding of their previous search engine but rather a major update, touted as a “decision engine,” introducing several new features and a fresh look.
Unlike previous efforts, which mostly focused on returning links to websites based on searched terms and other algorithms, Bing tries to go a step further by actually retrieving and processing data so that results are presented in a predigested manner. For instance, searching for a particular type of restaurant will get you a scorecard for each option, with user comments and ratings for things like service, food, wait time and more.
Shopping searches return pages featuring product reviews and price comparisons, with an emphasis on Microsoft’s CashBack service for rebates, while searching for travel information will present users with options to book tickets and even predicts when the lowest fares will be available – using technology from Farecast.com. General searches are also improved with related searches links based on semantic technology from PowerSet, which it purchased in 2008, and the main search box now also features suggestions as you type.
Overall it seems Microsoft has done some vast improvements to its search product – whether or not it will be enough to steal away any of Google's search market is another thing. Bing needs to seriously impress users to save Microsoft from its dwindling presence in this segment. Unfortunately, the service will not be broadly available until next week, but you can watch an introductory video here.
As expected, Microsoft has launched its revamped search service today and confirmed it has picked Bing as the branding for this new endeavor. Why that name? In their words: “You probably didn't wake up today expecting an entirely new search experience. But – Bing! – here it is.” Ok… now that we got that embarrassing piece of PR out of the way, we should note that this is not just a rebranding of their previous search engine but rather a major update, touted as a “decision engine,” introducing several new features and a fresh look.
Unlike previous efforts, which mostly focused on returning links to websites based on searched terms and other algorithms, Bing tries to go a step further by actually retrieving and processing data so that results are presented in a predigested manner. For instance, searching for a particular type of restaurant will get you a scorecard for each option, with user comments and ratings for things like service, food, wait time and more.
Shopping searches return pages featuring product reviews and price comparisons, with an emphasis on Microsoft’s CashBack service for rebates, while searching for travel information will present users with options to book tickets and even predicts when the lowest fares will be available – using technology from Farecast.com. General searches are also improved with related searches links based on semantic technology from PowerSet, which it purchased in 2008, and the main search box now also features suggestions as you type.
Overall it seems Microsoft has done some vast improvements to its search product – whether or not it will be enough to steal away any of Google's search market is another thing. Bing needs to seriously impress users to save Microsoft from its dwindling presence in this segment. Unfortunately, the service will not be broadly available until next week, but you can watch an introductory video here.
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User Comments (15)
Post a comment| tengeta on May 28, 2009 5:02 PM | Taking Google fans away from Google might actually be harder
than taking Apple fans way from Macs. In other words, stop trying.
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| Julio on May 28, 2009 5:52 PM | I somewhat agree. Although some of Bing's features sound
interesting, some others are merely rehashes of failed
projects like Amazon's A9 search engine. Now, the real question might be how many people are actual Google fans and how many others just use it because it's the top of mind (sort of "default") search engine. You may recall at some point there was a dominant Yahoo and a somewhat dominant Altavista as well.
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| pmshah on May 28, 2009 9:41 PM | I for one will not even try it. For me BING has only had one meaning and recall value - Boot It NG - the finest boot manager around from Terabyteunlimited.com - bar NONE.
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| skitzo_zac on May 29, 2009 12:51 AM | I don't think of myself as a Google fan. I only use the
search engine and none of it's other services. But I won't even bother trying this out, Google is just too familiar to me. And even the background image Bing has in the image for this article kinda puts me off. I like the simplistic site that Goolge has.
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| yukka on May 29, 2009 3:07 AM | I think its very short sighted to suggest we dont need any
search other than google. A couple of times recently there
have been errors on googles pages such as marking all pages
as "dodgy" or the slowdowns that led to people being unable
to search. I will give bing a go. It has less letters to type that google (4 versus 6) and thats got to save some keyboards (good for the environment). However, If it serves up the same crap that live search used to give me, it can get ****ed. Live search was utter garbage. I miss decent yahoo search and altavista.. the good old days 
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| trinitibt on May 29, 2009 5:44 AM | I will give it a shot. I'm tired of Google and I think it is
time for someone to give it some stiff competition. I hope
this is it. I really like cuil.com also.
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| nunjabusiness on May 29, 2009 6:54 AM | Looks great to me. I can't wait to stop "googling"
everything. Results from google searches have not been all that satisfying for a long time. The paid "results" outweigh (and obscure) what I am actually looking for half the time.
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| tedster on May 29, 2009 6:58 AM | who's the M0R0N that thought of this name?
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| JerryWithaJ on May 29, 2009 9:03 AM | I'll try anything once. I wonder if there will be Bing
Cashback to rival Live Cashback, which netted me $700+ over
the holiday season. Thank you, Bill Gates!
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| windmill007 on May 29, 2009 9:11 AM | Funny how they never showed regular searches. Sure for
newbies looking for basic main category searches it presents
it nice... What about if I'm searching for the dreaded Stop
Error. I want to see how it handles basic technical research
searches. If it presents it in a form other then just
showing me links to the most relevant pages or listing few
paragraphs under each webpage I think it will be a fail.
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| yukka on May 29, 2009 9:40 AM | I would do anything for a search engine that can tell the
difference between a shop page with a review button and an
actual review of a product. Give me a radio button to let me tell the search engine I want genuine reviews and not marketing and I guarentee I will use it when sourcing equipment, which given my job happens alot. I also agree with the previous poster - the paid google ads are getting in the way of the actual search.
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| techiesteven on May 29, 2009 10:29 AM | Someone should make a mock site at a different URL that
looks the same as bing.com (I keep saying and typing
"bling"... argh), and when you type in a search, display the
Windows blue screen of death. lol
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| phantasm66 on May 29, 2009 10:42 AM | Janice Litman Goralnik: "Oooh my GOD, Chandler Bing!!"
[link]
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| JDoors on May 29, 2009 12:58 PM | First of all, Microsoft, if you want my trust then I suggest
you present a promotional video that doesn't hard-lock my
computer after viewing. I've seen a ka-jillion videos on the
Internet -- and yours is the ONE that forces a reboot. Any
trickery on the Bing page that'll cause me grief? Should I
bother to try? Second, from the video (which I'm paraphrasing as I had to reboot and won't view it again), "We don't need just another search engine, we need a 'decision' engine." Do we? Really? The genius of Google is that WE decide what we need after performing a search. I don't know what data Microsoft used to determine that we need a search engine to do our deciding for us, but I would guess that only one out of ten of my own personal searches requires any further selections at all. I doubt I'll be switching search engines to potentially improve the results of one out of ten searches. And the name? Ba-da-BING? Are there actually any Microsoft employees who've heard that phrase ... EVER? Or who have any idea where it came from? Or what it's associated with? Anyone who cares? I have to admit I probably wouldn't be able to come up with a better name, but ... BING? "Let me BING that." "BING it." "I BINGED it." Uh, no.
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| siiix on May 29, 2009 1:36 PM | well i dont trust google just as i dont trust microsoft, in
fact i think i trust google by now less... with that the
ONLY reason i used google is because i had no choice, i was
never a fan... if something better comes up i will be one of
the 1st to switch BTW i think the name bing sounds better then google, but i guess thats a mater of opinion i actualy have to try it to see if i like the search result, sure as hell i dont like googles result, its more like at the moment do to lack of competition its the least crappy the "genius" of google dont work because 90% of humanity has no idea what they need, its not a democracy it should be decided by a group of experts and NOT a billions of dumb sheep... again the group of experts might fail , but they potential is greater to be excellent then a random people and worse profit orienting manipulating individuals [Edited by siiix on 2009-05-29 13:45:10]
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