Chances are that you’ve already heard of and even visited Bing, Microsoft’s new search offering
launched earlier in June, replacing the Live search of yesterday. It’s
new, shiny, and has pretty pictures, but does it really have much
effect on the market? There have been those headlines claiming it’s
“taken a bite out of Google,” but, looking
at the statistics, it hasn’t really affected the search industry
at all.It’s been going around the web that Bing has won a glorious one
percent of Google’s market share– that’s what the headlines say,
anyway. Taking a closer look, though, we see it’s not really that
exciting and that it’s probably too early to tell one way or the
other, anyway.
Though Bing did gain market share in the past month, and Google’s
market share did decrease, headline-happy journalists are blowing
things a bit out of proportion. “Bite” is hardly the word to use, and
“nibble”
is also probably incorrect as well. According to StatCounter, since
the introduction of Bing, Microsoft’s share in US searches grew by .42
percent (sorry, rest-of-the-world– you’re again being represented by
one country’s statistics). According to the same statistics, Google’s
share dropped by only .24 percent during the same time span.
That’s hardly detrimental to Google, and is actually normal and most
likely has little to do with Bing. Like stocks, companies’ shares in
just about everything often go up and down in increments from period
to period without any alarm, especially companies with as many
customers as Google has. Stepping back and looking at the bigger
picture, Google’s shares in March dropped to 76.49 percent and then
climbed back up to 79.08 percent in April– a bigger difference than
this past month.
All in all, the difference in percentages means very little in such a
short amount of time. I’m no analyst except for my own personal
speculations, but I think it’s safe to say that Bing should get six
months of being out in the wild before we begin to say it’s
cannibalizing other search engines.
Speculations
I never used the old Live search before Bing was instituted, but I
happened across the main page once or twice, and was surprised to see
a few weeks ago when I happened across it once more that it had
changed to Bing. For all I can tell, it’s the exact same service
except under a new name and at a new address. It has the same style of
main page with a picture of some place loosely connected with today’s
date and varied hotspots with tidbits of pop-up information. I’m not
one to talk, though, as I never used the search feature before
this.
I used the search feature a bit to see what all the hullabaloo was
about. The main differences to Google and even Yahoo! beside the colors and icons were that, for
one, an additional snippet can be displayed by hovering one’s mouse
over a dot next to a search result, and two, a search history is
displayed on the left-hand side. Bing seems to show general search
results, sponsored, links, related searches, and sometimes pictures
and other media in a similar fashion as Google. One of the biggest
differences, though, was that, for certain search terms, usually
general ones such as “dogs,” Bing not only lists general results (with
a link to go to a longer list of general results), but also lists, for
example, “Types of Dogs,” “Dog Breeders,” “Dog Health,” “Dog
Diseases,” and “Dog Toys–” a seemingly more comprehensive search with
more choice. I never used Live search, so I’ve no idea what’s new and
what’s the same with Bing. One thing is for sure: Bing can’t beat Google’s
street view on maps.
I don’t know about others, but I’ve been using solely Google for
years, and more than just the search engine. I’m used to it, I
recognize it, and I love it. So far, no other company’s similar
services have been able to sway me. I don’t see Bing being able to
take a whole lot of the market in the coming years, but then again,
you never know. It’s certain that there will be people who find Bing’s
search more intuitive, and you know what they say: competition is
generally a good thing. Will Bing be able to really make a go, though?
Hey, they now have Twitter
updates of prominent people integrated into Bing searches—
anything could happen.
I have a friend who works at google, and he laughed at me when I asked what they thought of bing as competition. It is just another revision of live search, which isn’t awful, but not as good as google. Their competitive advantage is to add a whole bunch of extra crap to search results, which is the exact opposite of the strategy google employed to get it where it is now.
Live Search (now bing), is just the latest chapter in the utterly baffling strategy microsoft has employed in regards to web properties.
You mean they’re laughing as hard as when a Microsoft employee is asked how scared Office is of Google Apps, or an Apple employee is asked how worrying is Android smartphones to iPhone product managers ?
No it hasnt done much yet. But that isnt the point. I dont understand why people dont look at this with great concern. We have the worlds largest OS maker, which surprise surprise, is also the worlds largest browser maker, jumping into a new market. Now where do you think they are going to get that new market dominance from? Well from the fact that Bing will be the default search engine in IE. And of course, they would say that is only natural that they use their search engine in their OS. But what is that going to do to the market? Well most people use IE because its the default. Most people who use IE will use Bing because it will be the default. Microsoft was just complaining to the FTC not too long ago about Google and Yahoo partnering. I wonder how Google feels about Microsoft using Windows and IE to push Bing?
???
They always did that with Live search and MSN and whatever and it has never worked.
So what are you talking about?
Indeed, you are correct. And when you think about it, with that much of an unfair advantage, its pretty amazing that they have managed to do so poorly for so long. These are the kinds of things I think about when certain blinkered “free enterprise!” people try to tell me that MS has gotten where they are by making better products than their competition. Sometimes their overwhelming desktop monopoly leverage is strong enough to push inferior products into their own monopoly positions. But sometimes the product is *so* inferior that not even overwhelming monopoly leverage is enough to force people to use it.
Edited 2009-07-03 22:16 UTC
Agreed. Bing just is not as good as Google, not even close. It’s like night and day. Fiona and Britney. The Eagles and NSYNC. And so on.
Well, that’s pretty clear starting from the very name, isn’t it? Bing Is Not Google
Rehdon
kragil and others: Yes, Microsoft to date has had quite crappy search products. The problem is that they dont have to be better than everyone else. They only have to be good enough to not be shunned. Look at IE. Even when it was at its worst, it was still the dominant browser simply because it was the default and most people were unable/too lazy to change. I dont want to see that happen to Google because they actually earned their position.
Edited 2009-07-04 02:09 UTC
They did get a foothold. They got a 7% or 8% market share. Without IE they would probably have maybe 1% of the market.
Probably because that isn’t going to happen and you are wrong. I don’t know if you’ve used IE 8, but there is this search providers box that comes up when you run it for the first time. Also MS isn’t just entering the search market. They’ve been in it for a while.
I’d say that most users (even non-geeks) would say, “How to I get to Google so I can search”, not just start using Bing.
That’s exactly right. “Where’s Google?” And two seconds later, “Oh, there it is.”
I’ve been less-than-impressed with each of Microsoft’s online efforts to date. Maybe I’ll try “Bing” just to check it out, but most likely I won’t bother.
No. Why would I visit it? Google works fine for me thanks.
With that attitude, how will you ever get people to try Syllable?
Windows and Mac OS X work fine for me thanks.
Edited 2009-07-03 21:35 UTC
But this is human nature. We don’t generally look for alternatives if we’re happy.
If Google sucked, Bing would be successful.
Oh, boy. Saying that on a site dedicated to operating systems? Here’s a few angles you could apply to this general comment (warning: can of worms ahead):
If Windows sucked, Linux would be a mainstream desktop success.
If x86 sucked, we’d all be using PPC/Sparc/Whatever workstations…
Not trying to spark anything, but I just couldn’t resist that comment.
Edited 2009-07-03 21:52 UTC
This wasn’t a ‘general’ comment. I’m saying that the only chance Bing would realistically have against Google, is if Google wasn’t good at what they do. Relax.
I remember being perfectly happy with Altavista
I’m realistic. Some people will never change no matter what. If people are happy with what they have they wont change. However I don’t believe people are happy with what they have, so Syllable has a chance to attract those people.
I am not unhappy with Google so I shall not try Bing.
With that attitude, how will you ever get people to try Syllable?
Windows and Mac OS X work fine for me thanks. [/q]
You don’t. You try to convince developers [device driver developers and more] to try Syllabus first, a general audience second.
I tried Bing a few days after it was out and was not impressed by the search results.
I searched for “web design” in my local city and many Real Estate agents topped the list! WTF?
Nice try Bing.
I’d be glad to use somebody else, other than Google, if the results were better.
The only thing they changed with Bing was the name. The marketing people thought that Windows Live just wasn’t cutting it as a name and tried to come up with something like Google that might bring up connotations of ‘searching’ in peoples’ minds. Absolutely nothing else about it has changed.
The funniest thing I heard was the story that Sergey Brin was taking personal charge of a team himself to respond to Bing, so worried was he about it. The search results from it are still as useless as ever as far as I can see.
It’s just getting desperate and laughable from Microsoft on the search front the more they try.
of course this wont affect the search industry in a big way but they do have a better marketing scheme and the results you get from bing are way better than the ones from live search;
my only experiences with live search are those of searching for “firefox” on a fresh windows system when there was only IE installed yet because live search would be the search engine it used when i entered something in the searchbar.
however it always proved to get me to a valid download link way faster by just enterering “mozilla.org” into the adress bar because the search results of live search were just crap
bing’s better and therefore can compete with google; theres just no competition yet coz google doesnt lack anything and everyone uses google.
Agree Bing has changed a lot of the interface, but has teh internal really changed? I mean teh backbone search algo – has that changed? Surely people care most about results, though a familiar Google-like interface is a good add-on?
Google is monopolly, which is not good. I’m happy with the bing, and I’m happy that someone tries to compete with google in search engine market.
Edited 2009-07-04 04:09 UTC
Google is a monopoly and MS is not?? O_o
Google gives good free services, MS takes 300-500$ OS-Office taxes every few year with crappy products pushing them to your throat. am i missing something here?
i tried bing and it really sucks when it comes to localized search (eg Turkish). google gives much better results.
To be honest, this is the first I’d heard that MS had launched a new search engine. Was I sick that day? It can’t have had much publicity…
I will never switch to Microsoft’s Bing search engine simply because, personally, I don’t trust the results it produces. I cannot justify this, this is just a feeling that I have and the same applies for Yahoo and others…
Who needs logic when you have feelings about something.
Question: do you not “feel” at all worried being dependent on Google for objective search results? How can you be so sure Google are trustworthy? Because they say they are not “evil”?
Go to Google and search for Unetbootin. I got 216,000 results. Do the same with Bing and you get 79,500 results.
Go to Google and search for: unetbootin-windows-357.exe. I got 296 results. Do the same with Bing, I got 2 results!
…2 results!! What the!!?? Can you believe it???
Based on the above criteria, it’s enough to keep me using Google + I have a feeling when you search for Linux related matters on MS’s search engine, the results might be biased since this is MS?? This is just a feeling that I have…
Edited 2009-07-04 11:25 UTC
Here is another one:
USBASPI.SYS 2.27 on Google: 631 results
USBASPI.SYS 2.27 on Bing: 64 results
Should I say more? Google search is better, no doubt about it, I don’t care how much they praise MS.
When it comes to specifics like this, Bing is next to useless in my own opinion…
Edited 2009-07-04 11:30 UTC
Which most are rubbish. That’s the main problem what I have with Google, most results are full of shit. It’s a common problem with all search engines but Google seem to suffer it most since people know how to fool there crawler. Problem with Google search monopoly is advertising, they ads maybe less annoying than most competitors had BUT they can get more money on that.
Yes it may be rubbish for the search engine but I prefer if “I” am the one the chooses what’s rubbish and what’s not rather than a computer. I am pretty sure if one wants to download or find something, some of that “filtered/hidden” rubbish (supposed to be) might have exactly the information or file you want even if it is in another language. In USBASPI.SYS case, the file is downloaded from a Japanese web site (Panasonic) where everything is written in Japanese but the file is English.
The user is the one that should choose what’s rubbish and what’s not — you (the search engine) just show the results and let me decide what I want.
Edited 2009-07-04 21:51 UTC
ok, lets play
enter USBASPI.SYS 2.27 into google
it says 631 results
scroll to the bottom of the site and jump to page 10
you will be sent to page 7 with the results 61-68 of 68
pretty close to bing (which only finds 23 of the 79 results on the 1st page)
Edited 2009-07-04 23:58 UTC
Ok, challenge accepted!
I tried what you said and you are right! Now do the same with Bing: http://www.bing.com/search?q=USBASPI.SYS+2.27&go=&form=QBLH&filt=al… and you get 64 results. Click on the last page (page 5) and it says 31-32 of 33 results! – Here: http://www.bing.com/search?q=USBASPI.SYS+2.27&filt=all&first=41&FOR… + it says Page 4!
Edited 2009-07-05 04:44 UTC
unetbootin-windows-357.exe
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=unetbootin-windows-357.exe&…
The first link is the link where you can download the file.
Go and do the same with Bing (good luck) http://www.bing.com/search?q=unetbootin-windows-357.exe&go=&form=QB…
thats what i wrote (but i’m not sure if the 23 is a typo)
but the result is the same: the number of results is pure bogus
at the moment your post is #1 in google
Hehe
Well, I guess Google’s search engine does pick things up very quickly 
I will keep using Google and people are free to use Bing if they trust it and want to. I personally don’t trust it and won’t use it and I don’t think there is anything MS can do to make me or people like me switch. Bing’s front page looks more beautiful and MS thinks they can make people switch just because they put some pretty pics. It’s not the outside; it’s the inside that matters. I recommend MS sticks with what they do “creating operating systems” and leave the search business to professionals such as Google.
P.S I all of my posts above have been posted from Chrome
Edited 2009-07-05 09:52 UTC
Actually the first two links are this thread
The third link is the project sourceforge page, which also happens to be the first link from Bing. What results where you getting?
Sure Bing only gives me three links, compared to Google’s 66, but with Bing the link I actually wanted was the first one, so in this case Bing wins (or at least doesn’t lose)
Hmmm I don’t know how this has come to be but now when you type unetbootin-windows-357.exe in Bing all of a sudden a desired link comes up! The project’s source page. This was not like this yesterday. It had only the last two links where the first one has a different URL but has displayed the SourceForge logo.
As for Google, I just tested again and you are right. The first two links are the ones of this thread but yesterday, I got different results just like with Bing.
Edited 2009-07-06 08:51 UTC
Aha!! Hahaha!
How can anyone explain this!? 
Search DeskAnker.exe in Google and you get 49 results!
Search DeskAnker.exe in Bing and you get 0 results!
I am almost sure there will be more cases like this. Face it, no one beats Google when it comes to specifics.
Edit: Most of the results on Google were crap BUT one of those rubbish link displayed was a real link to the software I wanted: http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=480715
Had I searched Bing only, I would not have found the file. Now, I don’t really need the file as I have but I am just trying to demonstrate how better Google is. Google picks up absolutely everything.
Edited 2009-07-06 09:18 UTC
had you searched without .exe the 1st link at both would have been what you wanted
Because filename extensions don’t exist in Windows. Except that they do. But they really don’t. But if you create a file without, will it will silently add a .txt. And now we can enjoy all that wonderful, user-friendly simplification with our web searches, too! 🙂
Edited 2009-07-06 14:16 UTC
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Linux&form=QBLH&scope=web&qs=n
It gives me good results, including the Wikipedia page and related searches if I want to see what Linux is all about.
But you do have a point. I believe it was some years ago when it was found that Microsoft tinkered with their results.
I think this was covered before, but shouldn’t a side effect of a good search engine is to provide the fewest results (given those results do match)?
In your search for that .exe file, say the answer is stored on one page on the entire Internet. If that result is contained in both results, wouldn’t it be more efficient to find 1 result in a space of 2 results, rather than 1 result buried in 296 results?
“quattordicidodicizerodue”
google: 16.500 results
bing: 89 results
(a “unique” cd title)
That is a pretty pointless test in my opinion without knowing how many of those results actually have anything of worth to say about “quattordicidodicizerodue”.
Search should be a quality game not a quantity one. I’d rather just have 5 great links than 5 great links burried in 5000 links worth of noise.
After having checked out both search engines with your search word, it seems like bing has less spam links, which should definitely count in its favour compared to Google.
It’s not bad. But for a search engine, I need a no frills approach. This is why google faired better than yahoo. (Yahoo startted going downhill when they introduced those annoying x10 rich popup ads.) The Microsoft team seems to think that a “prettier” search engine would be better. Google has been in the search engine business for a long time. Their text ads are non intrusive and their main search engine site is quite adept on your mobile device. Google search is a tool, and unless Microsoft adopt the utilitarian approach to search, it will never make any significant gains on google.
Bing has no chance of competing with Google. Google has become so vast and powerful even the word “Google” has entered the American lexicon as a synonym for searching. Aside from Google’s dominance, most people expect Microsoft software to be fraught with problems or act in an overbearing and presumptuous manner (Microsoft Word autoformat anyone?) and I’m sure Bing is no exception.
I saw few commercial for Bing and they are desinformation. In ads I saw localised shopping results, animated video previews and many more. In current form Bing offers only “Web” and “Pictures” (no videos) tab, with “More” adding “xRank”. None of which is even comparable with Google. If and only if Microsoft implement things shown in ads Bing would start to become interesting. Now its nothing, it’s like Google 10 years ago.
Cuil.com, Google.com, Ask.com or Yahoo.com seem to have plenty of ways to keep me busy with searching.
B.I.N.G. doesn’t pay me for using it!
Not that I ever used Live Search either, even when they were paying. (o:
Certainly there are aspects on both sides of the “more results” v. “less garbage” debate that will appeal to each user based on what results they want to have their search engine of choice produce for them.
It may also be argued that MS will adapt their product with the goal of being more competitive. The counter argument is that their new product *is* an adaptation derived from their previous products and that even though the name is new and the marketing now calls it a decision engine they haven’t actually produced a better mousetrap yet.
There are a lot of factors that bear on a product’s ability to capture market share. Functionality, ease of use, presentation aspects of the user interface, name awareness, reputation, etc.
My avoidance of the MS product is based on my perception of their reputation. If I actually start to use the product and find it suits my needs I won’t hesitate to recommend it. Before that can happen they have a certain barrier to overcome in order to get me to use it. The validity of that barrier is extremely subjective since it is a function of my decision to avoid using their decision engine based on my opinion of the facts of their existence as a company. The functionality of that barrier is what they will have to undermine in order to add me to their user base.
So far their marketing isn’t penetrating that barrier. So, I am admittedly prejudiced,YMMV.
“Shame on Microsoft. More shame on everybody who got caught in this cheap trick”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/144813-the-great-bing-scam