

Bing: Microsoft Prepares For War With A Revamped Search Engine (Screenshots) - transburgh
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/28/bing-microsoft-prepares-for-war-with-a-revamped-search-engine-screenshots/

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qeorge
I may be in the minority, but I think this is exciting. We need more
competition in search. I'm not sure if Microsoft is the right company for the
job, but I'm glad they finally seem to be taking search seriously.

I'm also glad they went with Bing and not Sift, as we bought BingSEO.com
recently. ;)

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icey
I hope they start using it on MSDN. Until they can get their shit together
with regard to search on their own properties, I don't have a lot of hope for
them indexing the web.

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qeorge
Absolutely. There's a real culture problem at Microsoft that is hostile to
search. I think its absolutely fair to say that Microsoft has treated search
as an afterthought in their products, and it shows.

I recently saw Microsoft's Mike Gannotti speak about building Sharepoint
portals for large organizations, and he said "if a user has to search you have
failed them." The argument was that if a proper hierarchical navigation was in
place a user should never have to search.

To me that's heresy, and I wasn't shy about saying so. The retort was that I
saw search as a panacea, or worse as an excuse to be lazy about information
architecture. Of course neither is true. I believe great IA begets great
search and that both are important and worth getting right.

So I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm hoping Bing can work on both fronts, by
applying taxonomy to unstructured information _when it makes sense_ and
staying out of the way the rest of the time. With the wealth of talent at
Microsoft I think they are capable of building a great search engine, but only
if they can really see search as more than an ad platform.

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icey
It's really unfortunate, because they have a terrible bitrot problem as well.
If I try to find documentation on products older than 3 or 4 years old, at
some point in the hunt for the correct documents, I'll end up at a 404 error.
What makes it terrible is that I'll get that 404 from a page that I've been
linked to from inside of MSDN, or from the search. I just use Google to search
MSDN now, and it saves me tons of time (and frustration).

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iroach
Less is more. Microsoft just doesn't seem to get that. This interface looks
like a convoluted piece of crap that changes based on what I search on. No
thanks.

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carbon8
Plus, everyone knows that the first step in great UI development is covering
an application's background in stock photos.

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misterbwong
I don't know. I quite like the background photos on the current Live.com. It's
a welcome change from the boring white pages.

I do agree that the results interface looks cluttered. Granted, they are
trying to present a lot of information, but they should find a way to simplify
it. I suspect they'll change it up in time and after a real world launch.

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carbon8
_"I quite like..."_

But that's just a taste preference (though I agree with the sentiment; I
personally don't like white backgrounds in general). Plus, all indications are
that the images are just a haphazard marketing decision. Good design controls
and deliberately influences user behavior patterns. This just tries to look
pretty and not be google, disregarding any impact that might have on usability
or functionality.

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jasonlbaptiste
It's different and I like the thesis behind it: "decision engine". A good way
to understand search is to see how people make the decisions to go about what
they're searching for. Keyword they start out with, its variants, the final
answer/result, and what form of search they should be using. travel? local?
image? etc. It's all going to come down to execution though (Cliche, but
relevant here more than ever). If it sucks, then 80 mil in advertising wont
work well. BUT if it is something that people have to say "yo, you NEED to try
this", then things could get interesting.

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stcredzero
With something like this, you don't want to overtly advertise. You want word
of mouth to develop. I think the advertisement will sometimes work against
them. I know I'm wary of ads for search -- most things advertised for search
have been a disappointment to me.

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amichail
Bing, like Wolfram Alpha, includes various web site functionality in the
search engine itself.

I don't have much confidence in this approach.

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andrewl-hn
I don't know, to me it looks a lot like ask.com

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petemack
Why not wrap these new features into "Live", it seems like they are also going
to be competing with themselves.

The tag line is horrible: "When it comes to decisions that matter, Bing &
Decide." I prefer the name "Live", since it seems more relevant.

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qeorge
Live is tough to use as a verb, and they use Live for a number of other
products (e.g. Xbox Live, Windows Live, MSN Live Spaces). As a result they
have to describe the search as Live Search, and they don't own LiveSearch.com.

So even though live.com is an awesome domain it wasn't going to work for their
search engine.

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nazgulnarsil
looks like a portal type page is generated for each search. could be superior
to google for shopping. though amazon already covers that base fairly well.

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anigbrowl
The form for searching out plane tickets and such was the only thing that
jumped out at me. It might be a winner if they make it very easy to buy things
through the search engine page...eg you search for 'Great New Movie', get a
list of cinemas local to your zip, pick the theater+showtime you want, and
then get a 'buy' button, all without leaving the search environment.

But things like that have been tried many times before. And I'm sure Google
could resurrect Checkout or Wallet or whatever it was called.

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yason
Anyone remember Paul and Jamie?

If we reconsider Bing, Bang, and the Boom then this seems to be pretty far
away from Boom.

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calambrac
"Kumo" is about a billion times better as a name than "Bing".

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TweedHeads
As always, hype followed by failure.

Learn from Apple, hush followed by success.

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stcredzero
That basically amounts to figuring out how to outsource your hype. (Best way:
to your customers!)

