Well the long awaited and much hyped new search engine from Microsoft is now live. Bing (formally known as Kumo) apparently went live yesterday while it wasn't supposed to debut till June 3. Why on a Sunday? Who knows. Since I wasn't on my computer much at all yesterday I just got a chance to try it out today.
It certainly has a nice design on it's home page and much different from Google's all white page. But then again since the Google search box is right in my toolbar I never see the homepage and really don't need to. I did do a very quick and surprisingly enjoyable search using Bing which is supposed to deliver fewer search results which are more-focused, especially with the video. Scrolling over the video results, prompts the videos to start playing in their windows. May not be great for those searching from their cubicles.
There have been a few people praising the new search engine such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who said it “was the most astounding software demo I’ve every seen,” after seeing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveil Bing at the All Things Digital Conference last week. Search Engine Land says while it’s better than Live Search, it’s no Google killer.
However there were also those that weren't as positive with their comments. Silicon Alley Insider's Henry Blodget declares "Bing" dead on arrival and says the software giant should really consider leaving the Internet business behind. Blodget starts by taking issue with a recent analogy from CEO Steve Ballmer, in which he says it took several years and several tries before Windows became a household name. Ballmer said he hopes that Bing can come from behind in a similar manner.
But Ballmer fails to acknowledge that Microsoft had a monopoly in operating systems, Blodget says. "When you have a monopoly, everyone buys your upgrades ... mostly because they don't have a choice." In search, Microsoft, at 8% market share, is far from having a monopoly. "It has a product that has a few cool features but is no better than the market leader's product and is easy to copy," says Blodget. "And it has a vast, powerful, and talented competitor that has every incentive to make sure its foot stays firmly on Microsoft's throat." He adds: "Windows analogies aren't just weak here. They're delusional."
Ad Age today was also talking about Bing and they too referenced Steve Ballmer's announcement last week which "was greeted with the kind of press coverage most internet upstarts can only dream of". Bing ended up racking up 1,500 news stories, was on Twitter's trending-topics list for almost a full day and, per Nielsen Online, accounted for 0.23% of all blog conversations that day.
Unfortunately though most people did what I did. They clicked through to check out the site and only got a "Coming Soon" message and and a three-minute video trailer outlining some of the search engine's highlights. So with all the hype visitors couldn't even try it out. Then to have it come out yesterday without anyone knowing about it. Strange!
Well we'll have to wait and see what people think of it after they've used it a bit. Will it be better than Google? It needs to be A LOT better for them to take share away from Google at this point. Microsoft currently only has 8.3% of the search market in the U.S. vs. Google's 63.7% according to the latest comScore data. So they have a big gap to fill. Let me know what you think of it here.
it seems like Microsoft is having a search engine identity crisis
Posted by: Smokey | June 04, 2009 at 12:00 AM