Bing! it all together

A new chapter is now written in Microsoft's recent trend of re-inventing its services to wholly encompass its users. The launch of its new search engine 'bing' has brought Microsoft full circle in its attempts to maintain dominance in a market where giants often fall and become irrelevant. I took some time to poke around the website and see what the hype (or lack there-of) was all about.

The name 'bing' I think is a very clever one. Rather than going with a more traditional 'search' word like its predecessor 'live', Microsoft went with something more catchy, more untraditional and more easily retained. Just as companies from Kleenex (all paper tissues are referred to as Kleenex in everyday conversations) to Google ("let's google you!") have effectively created new words/definitions for their market segments, I think Microsoft is hoping to do the same with 'bing'. Who knows if 'binging' yourself becomes the next big thing; but with a name like that they're on the right way.

The beta launch of the search engine brings with it limitations (searches aren't fully optimized as of yet, and the map function doesn't work that well) but the search website definitely (and defiantly) shows promise. Microsoft has been able to incorporate exactly what consumers are looking for in today's market into the everyday search: experience. Beginning with the home search page, the experience captures you right away. I even went around and clicked on the informational tid-bits scattered around the screen (see picture).

I'm not a wiz with algorithms that search engines use, but I do know that bing delivered what I wanted, when I wanted it. A search for a movie title (Disney's "UP" in my case) came up with all of the showtimes in theaters around me as the first result. A search for a store (Target) gave me not only the locations near me, specials, and reviews, but also a list of related searches (WalMart, Kmart etc.). This is all great, but what really caught my eye was the delivery of pictures and video.

When searching through pictures you can select not only how many pop up in your search, but also navigate through them by color, faces and size. Although I'm not quite sure how useful that is at this point, I did have fun with it. Also, the fact that videos are embedded in the search means that by hovering over it you can view the entire length of it without leaving your browser.

All in all, only time will tell what the future holds for bing. At this point though I think that the delivery mechanism is dynamic and impressive. Also, 'binging' myself brought up my LinkedIn profile, all Google gave me were tennis scores from a high-school match I played in 4 years ago. Take that Google! So bing yourself, see what you come up with.

DVN