Microsoft Bing: The first real Google alternative
Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, is the first real competitor to Google.
I rarely use Google. Or rather, I rarely use Google.com. Because Google is embedded into Safari, I just use the search box there, which creates huge stickiness that's hard to displace. Of course, Microsoft has the same option now for embedding Bing into Internet Explorer, assuming it's allowed to by the courts. But the very short amount of time I've spent with Bing has me rethinking my search engine options seriously for the first time.
I know a lot of people gush about Google's user experience, and certainly there are a lot of nice things about using it: speed, accuracy of results, and things like weather, which give instant contextual results. But from an aesthetic point of view I've found its minimalism to be on the drab side, rather than the chic side. It's utilitarian, not fancy, and mostly not that fun.
Bing has had the courage to say "to hell with eking out the last millisecond of page load time," which both Google and, historically, Yahoo have always emphasized. In today's world, and moving forward, it's just not that important (mobile being an exception, but for that you can provide a custom experience).
Rafe Needleman at CNET Webware and Katherine Boehret at WSJ both have good write-ups on the niceties of Bing, so I won't repeat them here. It does some things differently than Google, breaking some ingrained habits, and while there isn't much that's significantly worse, there is quite a bit that is considerably better. The results that come back are somewhat different, sometimes more on target, sometimes not. I'd say the jury's out on that, especially since this is a just-launched service (assuming it's not just a reskin of Live, I don't know what's under the hood), and assuming it will improve as users contribute with clicks. (Like Google, it lists this blog as the top search when I self-search, so that's a plus.)
It presents the search results in a nicer way than Google, especially image search (multisize thumbnails and grids, different choices of detail, filters by image size, colors, etc., and overall a presentation that focuses on the images themselves). I love how sounds and videos are embedded into search results and how there's a mouse-over for a small preview. Hovering over the right edge of a search result description pulls up more information without having to click through to the page.
I like that the front cover photo changes each day and how you can float over it to find the hidden Easter eggs that lead you on unexpected paths (one is shown popped up in the bottom right of the above image). Ask.com tried the splash-image approach but that was more of a skin, but Bing's approach is more engaging and encourages you to actually visit the front page, rather than bypass it as quickly as possible to get to the results.
Bing avoids two traps: One, it doesn't just try to ape Google. Two, Microsoft hasn't overstyled it and thrown in the kitchen sink of aesthetics and functionality. There is clearly an editorial hand at work that hasn't allowed it to get focus-grouped to death. Kudos to Microsoft for that.
I'm going to drop Bing into my toolbar bookmarks and give it a whirl for a while. Who knows, maybe it will be enough to displace the 800-pound gorilla.
Adam Richardson is the director of product strategy at Frog Design, where he guides strategy engagements for Frog's international roster of clients, envisioning and creating new products, consumer electronics, and digital experiences. Adam combines a background in industrial design, interaction design, and sociology, and he spends most of his time on convergent designs that combine hardware, software, service, brand, and retail. He writes and speaks extensively on design, business, culture, and technology, and he runs his own Richardsona blog. Adam is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
If it can't consistently return good results, and the reviews are mixed thus far, it is worthless.
never expected at least in my lifetime that I would be even trying to use any other search engine apart from google... that true now. but for the first time in my surfing experience I am using the newly launched bing.com parallel to google.com
it's an awesome experience using bing, it's now 5 days since I am using it, and really a good competition to google and yahoo
<a href"http://www.gnugroup.org>Gnu Group - ILG</a>
Until then, re-bonjour Google.
I know Microsoft corporate culture very well. And some of the people leading this effort.
Do me a favor. Go to bing, type in something like Dslr camera. Now notice the ad in the upper right of the screen. For sony Dslr's, hhhhmmmmm. What could this mean.
Now look to the top left of the window. Click shopping. OH NO. It is only, only, SONY DSLR'S. But only sony. Why, microsoft would not be only giving you it advertisers? Microsoft would ever do anything that evil, would they? No, really?
Well maybe the canon or nikon link on the left would fix this problem.
Canon shows you nothing. Only the lowest and cheapest of all of the canons. The xsi rebel. It does not show the 40d, 50d, 5d mark II, nor the 1ds mark III.
Wow. No evil here.
Now lets us look at the nikon, which at least offers a little more options.
But in both cases you have to jump through hoops in order to view the camera.
After jumping through the hoops, it takes forever to load the page, of course. Only to find that you are going to pay hundreds more for the camera.
For example.
d90 with lens is running about 1,100.00 else where.
to get the d90 from bing, the average seems to 1,200. With 3-7% back. And you still have to jump through hoops to get it.
From reliable stores.
Now do other searchs, Bing is just Live with new name. It gives you microsoft's interpretation of the web.
Sold out to the lowest bider.
So if you are searching for basic information and want to see happy photos and video, I guess Bing works. But if you do actual research, Google blows its doors off.
Re-brand 'live.com' and all of a sudden, presto, [or is it 'bing'], it's now competition to Google?
I expected better critique from Cnet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft
Bing is just microsoft selling out to the lowest bidder.
No one will believe you. Most still believe BG wrote MS-DOS, and most believe Windows UI copied nothing from Apple, and Apple stole Xerox UI. You know the one that they all assume that it worked exactly like the first Macintosh OS in 1984.
And your 'mlb' example is pretty lousy. Both sites come up with mlb.com as the first hit, and both bring you within one click of full game results. Here's a counter example: search for "UP Showtimes". Both give you a list of showtimes for theaters in your area, but Google gives you one-click access to purchasing tickets, which Bing doesn't. Perhaps Microsoft is holding out until Fandango gives them a bigger cut of the action.
My conclusion? Well I thing Microsoft did a good job here, something that I believe people weren't expecting. Specially to launch it before the actual date of launch was to many people ... well un-Microsoft. The results are better than before and the results that are grouped into the relevant categories to make it easier to narrow down the results, the image of the Bing page changes everyday to give it a fresh look, however even though it a huge improvement over Live Search but it still doesn't come up to the Google's search quality but at this moment I can say that this is definitely a positive step from Microsoft in the right direction and I can expect Google to be thinking the same and am pretty sure that it will come up with something to make sure that it still continues to lead the search engine market.
- by Will_Cox June 4, 2009 1:35 PM PDT
- There is a lot of room for improvement from Microsoft's latest search, just as there is for every other existing search out there. There may not be anything ultimately groundbreaking or different from the Bing experience as there is from a Google or Yahoo, but over time that company might have the tools to be the next leader depending on where these other companies decide to focus their attention.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (32 Comments)Don't be surprised if some other lesser-known search sites begin to take off over the next few years and challenge. Meta search engines such as eZanga.com are growing all the time and focusing more and more on an efficient search experience rather than just charting out a plethera of unrelated material, which makes most of the bigger engines frustrating at times.
Google still reigns, but it's very possible that people will grow out of their comfort zone and start looking elsewhere if other search engines can catch their attention and provide an equally pleasant experience.