Microsoft’s Bing kicks Google’s behind

At the surface, Microsoft’s Bing may look like Google, but once you dig in a bit you notice a lot of nice little enhancements that make a huge diference.
I’ve only been using Bing for the last 2 hours and I’ve already decided it is my new favorite search engine. The search results look very similar to google’s, but Microsoft’s added a ton of little useful features. My favorite is the left sidebar with search history and related results. I also really like the pop-out details you get whenever you hover over any search result. The site is very ease to use, but obviously has a lot of deep complexity in its design; a lot of “spit and polish”. Small things you may not even notice, like how the image search’s counter (IMAGES;”>1-16 of 1,510,000 results) will update as you scroll – pretty nice little feature that I’ll miss if I ever go back to search images on Google.

If you agree that Bing is useful, you may get frustrated if you are a Mac user because you can not update your Safari search bar to default to Bing. Luckily, I found a helpful little utility and how-to that remedies the situation.

I know there may be a temptation to argue the quality of the results – that somehow google’s search algorithms are somehow better and more sophisticated. First, good luck with that discussion, the results I am receiving are just as good as I get from google for my “real world” use . Second, who really cares? There are countless studies from Forrester and Gartner that prove people value ease of use more than they value content. Bing has the “ease of use” thing down. It’s pretty ironic because Google beat out Mapqwest’s user experience years ago with Google Maps, but they failed to innovate in search UX and now have been leapfrogged by Microsoft.

It is obvious to me that Microsoft has a renewed focus on user experience. Thy are investing heavily in us (the end user) and that investment is truly paying off.

(http://anthonyfranco.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/microsofts-bing-kicks-googles-behind/)

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Microsoft’s ‘Bing’ Search Engine Debuts, But It’s No Google

Microsoft’s revamped search offering — known as “Bing” — has gone live. In fact, Bing is now the default Live.com homepage.

We know what you’re thinking: Does the world need another confusingly-branded search engine? But horrible name and questionable graphics aside (Hot air balloons? Seriously?) Bing actually isn’t that bad of a search engine.

The problem is that Bing doesn’t really offer any compelling advantage over Google.

Bing is fast, offers a minimalist results page (which looks just like Google’s results, but with a bit more filtering/subsearch options in the left-hand sidebar), and acceptable, though not stellar, results. There’s not much more to it.

In general, Bing’s results were a bit outdated compared to similar searches preformed on Google, and Bing often lacks the helpful inner-page links that Google offers for large, popular websites.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been trumpeting Bing as a better solution for shopping searches, trip planning, health care queries and finding a local business.

From our testing, while Bing is able to deliver acceptable results for most of those use cases, there is again, nothing major that sets it apart from Google.

There are some niceties. Like, when you’re searching for shopping results, Bing carries over Live.com’s cashback offers. The links now say, ‘Bing Cashback,” but are otherwise the same. Also, search results are accompanied by the standard short page descriptions we’ve come to expect, but if that’s not enough information for you, hover your mouse over the search result. You’ll see a small box pop up that provides even more in-depth info. The nice thing is that Bing gives you a preview of the content of the page itself, rather than just relying on the meta description. It’s not entirely new, but it’s a helpful feature.

Another place Bing offers you something you won’t find on Google is within video searches. Bing lets you watch short previews of videos (including results from Hulu). To see it in action just search for an episode of your favorite show using Bing Videos and then hover the mouse over any of the video thumbnails to watch a short clip. Beware though, the clips will auto-play and don’t always stop when you roll off them, which could make for some potentially awkward moments depending on what sort of video you’re searching for.

While Bing is definitely Microsoft’s most impressive search engine to date, it still lacks anything game-changing enough to make us switch away from Google...

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Introducing Microsoft Bing

You probably didn’t wake up today expecting an entirely new search experience.

But – Bing! – here it is.

So, why a new search engine? Why the new name? Why now?

Well, because even though search is a pretty amazing thing, the current state of search engines has some equally amazing statistics.

So far in 2009, there are four and a half websites created EVERY SECOND as the web continues to expand. While more searchable information is cool, nearly half of all searches don’t result in the answer that people are seeking.

At the same time, the way the world searches is changing. You want more than just information. You want knowledge that leads to action.

The truth is you’ve evolved. It’s time search caught up.

So we had an idea. Start over. And we did.

We took a new approach to go beyond search to build what we call a decision engine. With a powerful set of intuitive tools on top of a world class search service, Bing will help you make smarter, faster decisions. We included features that deliver the best results, presented in a more organized way to simplify key tasks and help you make important decisions faster.

And features like cashback, where we actually give you money back on great products, and Price Predictor, which actually tells you when to buy an airline ticket in order to help get you the best price – help you make smarter decisions, and put money back in your pocket.

We sincerely hope that the next time you need to make an important decision, you’ll Bing and decide.

Thank you,
Bing Team, Microsoft

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