

Bing - mshafrir
http://www.bing.com/ComingSoon

======
teilo
What I find fascinating about this is not the technology itself. It is that
Microsoft has, as much as possible, done their best to hide the fact that this
is a Microsoft product. Unless one looks at the page footer, which is in a
small light grey text (in zone-out land, in other words), one would have no
idea.

This is right in line with their "surprise! it's a PC" campaign. If one
watches the corresponding campaigns, Apple is unabashedly proud of being
Apple, Google about being Google, but Microsoft seems to be embarrassed about
being Microsoft.

I am rather curious where this will go, and how consumers will react. Of
course, Microsoft wins if people ignore the company and just buy the product.

~~~
stcredzero
Monopoly/near-monopoly has let them abuse their brand to the point of trashing
it.

One ironic aspect of this: one can see this as Microsoft trying to compete by
offering "better customer service," if you can call repackaging search results
"customer service." Perhaps it's better termed as "superior, seamless customer
experience."

Perhaps they're onto something. If Google really doesn't offer better data
than Microsoft or Yahoo, then Google's advantage is in their Brand. Microsoft
can combat this by starting a new Brand, and stand behind it with the same
quality of data, but a superior customer experience.

EDIT: On second thought, Microsoft may be behind the game again. The target to
chase shouldn't be Google Search. I suspect it should be Facebook and Twitter.
Google Wave might leapfrog Microsoft here.

~~~
qeorge
That's a really good point about customer service. Google's customer service
is awful (AdWords & AdSense) because they're so insistent on not involving a
human. In the same way as 90's MS they've used their monopoly as an excuse for
bad customer experiences.

Testing indicates its not the result quality that makes people like Google's
results better, but the brand. So I agree - going directly after the brand
makes a lot of sense.

~~~
stcredzero
_because they're so insistent on not involving a human_

Classic case of something that was a tactical advantage becoming a key
weakness.

------
mattmaroon
Step 1 for building a popular search engine might be to stop changing the name
every 2 years. Just a thought.

~~~
staunch
Step 1 is knowing that the name alone doesn't mean shit.

~~~
encoderer
The brand is the only thing that matters. Everyone here saw the post last
week, consumers gave Live Search the highest marks when it was dressed up with
a Google logo and stylesheet.

The brand is it. And branding doesn't sink or swim based on name alone, but it
isn't a trivial factor.

~~~
axod
I don't buy that. I've never been able to get any useful results out of
live.com. It's just dire technology.

~~~
stanleydrew
Right, but you're one data point.

------
Zoasterboy
Bing Is Not Google B.I.N.G.

Anyone else notice that? Microsoft is using the GNU style recursive acronym.
Irony at its finest.

------
russell
It's a video demo of bing, a supersonic flyover of the features. The demo is
obviously consumer oriented, but the teaser in interesting enough that I will
give it a try for my consumer searches. Recently my SO and I made a trip to
Virginia and Washington for her daughter's wedding. We did a lot of tedious
planning using Google. If bing can ease the process, I'll use it.

Most of my searches are tech related. Google is pretty painful, but I hold
little hope that bing is going to be my salvation. When in the name of <insert
your favorite deity> is anyone going to implement HN-style modding for search
results?

~~~
nostrademons
"When in the name of <insert your favorite deity> is anyone going to implement
HN-style modding for search results?"

Google already has it. Have you played with SearchWiki?

~~~
anuraggoel
A user's SearchWiki rankings do not influence other users' search results.
Yet. Till that happens, it's not really HN-style modding.

~~~
frossie
How about xmarks (used to be foxmarks)? They highlight search results
depending on which of their users have bookmarked them (they are a bookmark
sync service so they have access to that data). After all, bookmarking is a
way of upmodding. <http://www.xmarks.com/about/features/smarter_search>

~~~
anuraggoel
Xmarks search is indeed a cool concept (much like delicious search), but I
don't bookmark everything useful I find on the web - so bookmark-based search
will never be quite as comprehensive.

In a way, search engines already account for up-modding by factoring in which
links you click on when you are given a page of search results. But you are
more likely to click on results already at the top, so I wouldn't give too
much weight to that information.

The SearchWiki concept has a lot of potential if Google decides to go down
that path though.

~~~
frossie
I agree that a bookmark based search will never be comprehensive. Neither will
any other kind of social solution - I doubt anything will do sort of a search
engine that looks at semantics.

The real problem with SearchWiki (or other upvoting/downvoting) is that you
keep going back to the search page while your search is _failing_. As soon as
you click through and find the page that you want, you stop - you do what you
wanted and get on with your life. Whereas if that is the page you need and
bookmark it (granted your point that we don't bookmark everything), that is a
true and accurate indicator of success.

Since HN was explicitly mentioned upthread, it would be interesting to know
how many people upvote/downvote stories (which you have to get back to the
main page to do) versus comments (which are in your face in their totality
when you are asked to vote). I can only speak for myself, but I vote on
comments massively more often than I vote on stories, exactly for the reason I
described. So in order for SearchWiki to really work for me, I want to express
my happiness when I am viewing the target page, not the search page. (I am
sure this can be accomplished in theory, I just don't think the support is
currently there).

~~~
derefr
How about a _history_ -based search engine? A plugin that simply submits every
link you visit (when your privacy features are off) to the aggregator, along
with how long you kept each page open before you closed it/surfed away. I know
it would be incredibly invasive, but it would basically be a Nielsen Box for
the Internet.

~~~
frossie
I don't think you can do that just via the history. A lot of pages are just
sitting there in my tabs because I am not paying attention to them, not
because I am engrossed in them. You need to be able to see what the user is
really doing.

I remember a while back in the UK there was a study to actually measure real
attentiveness while the TV was on. Cameras were installed inside people's TVs
to record the viewers so their focus could be noted. This was all very clearly
explained to them, but as time went by, and people being people, they
eventually started to forget the camera was there; so in some cases the poor
researchers got a bigger share of, err, domestic activities than they
bargained for.

------
drawkbox
The name and logo is weak branding so far. But,I think that Google built their
service not by marketing but by functionality. So they have a chance. However
Googling something and Binging it is much different in verbiage.

I think that digg or (dig) is actually a great name for a search engine. I
think for the branding after the fact it has to be something that works in a
verb. Bing it! is better than live or MSN search it but still, bing?... Cannot
help but think of Chandler Bing and it isn't as mathematically cool as Google
is.

But I guess Bing does mean these, as to which it will become is yet to be
determined.

\- Bing is a Unix program which is essentially a ping with added network
throughput measurements. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_(program)

\- Bing is a Chinese term used to describe dough-based Chinese flatbreads,
pancakes, unleavened dough foods, or indeed any food item with a flat disk ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_(Chinese_flatbread)

\- A slag heap (also called bing, Boney piles, culm, waste coal, Terekons
(Russian), gob piles, or slate dumps) is a pile built of accumulated tailings,
which are by-products of mining. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_(mining)

\- Prison solitary confinement, a term used by inmates; A heap or pile, such
as a slag heap en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bing

------
chanux
Is this where Kumo ended up?

~~~
petemack
Yes, Kumo (and Kiev) are the internal codenames.

------
edmccaffrey
Most of the people I know will see the image on the main page and think it is
some type of specialized search engine, and not come back.

~~~
kaiserama
That is if they even realize that they are supposed to perform a search.

I'm all for market competition and I realize that MS feels as though they HAVE
to do this, but this seems a lot like MS's failed attempt at revamping their
search a few years ago. And back then they had the advantage of having an
operating system that people didn't despise. Without a good tie in (unfair
advantage) with an OS and what appears to be an attempt to get people to shift
the way they search I think this is doomed.

~~~
encoderer
Honestly, man, most people don't care enough about their OS to despise it. My
parents or wife or non-techie friends have ever said anything bad (or good)
about Vista. It's just there.

I firmly believe it's a case of tech echo chamber at work.

I will add that when I gave instructions on disabling UAC it did result in
"oh, that's good" type of comments. But I did that proactively. Never had them
come to me seeking relief from it. Kinda like when a loud furnace shuts off in
the winter and it's so much more pleasantly quiet, but you didn't even notice
it when it was on.

------
joanou
I read it last night thinking the name was a joke.

------
TallGuyShort
It looks like they're trying to make a mix of Google and Wolfram-Alpha. Not a
bad idea - let's see if they can make it work.

------
socratees
Just another "I'm a PC campaign."

------
whalesalad
All the flight stuff is farecast.

------
solutionyogi
I will never be able to 'Bing' and Decide.

There is only one Bing, Chandler Bing!

[ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_Bing> ]

~~~
lukifer
Ned! Ryerson! Bing!

