Humor video highlights Bing's challenge
There's a funny video making the rounds that mocks Microsoft's huge Bing ad campaign.
In the video, embedded below, CollegeHumor.com suggests that folks start "googling with Bing."
It's a funny parody of the Bing ads, but it also shows how big Microsoft's challenge is in search.
Bing, it says, lets you Google photos, Google maps, and more. After months of development and testing, Microsoft's revamped search engine made its public debut about one month ago.
On the one hand, typing in Bing.com is just as easy as typing in Google.com (it's actually two characters shorter). In that sense, the bar for changing search engines is low.
At the same time, Google has become synonymous with search. I have been making a concerted effort to try Bing for some of my searches and even made it the default in my search bar in Firefox. I still find myself performing more than half my searches in Google--just because I type Google.com by habit.
On the plus side, Bing has made modest gains in its first couple of weeks. But the real question is whether people will keep googling with Bing. (and of course, maybe some day just Bing with Bing.)
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Another funny video from same site:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1915418
So was live.com, but you didn't see anyone using that one, either.
Though I'm not a Microsoft fan (to put it mildly), I honestly hope they're able to provide some competition to Google.
As for the author's comment about "Bing" being shorter to type than Google, does anybody actually type "Google" any more? I haven't in years, because Firefox and Safari have the search bar. I don't know what IE looks like these days -- do IE users have to type "Google"?
But I DID used to type in "google" in the address bar even when my homepage was Google. Since whenever I make a new tab, I set it so that it pulls up a blank page, and I would then type in google instead of clicking on the Home button.
And I remember an article a looong time ago about how Yahoo can sometimes be a better search engine for NEWS than Google. For example, when hurricane Katrina struck, if you typed "katrina" into Google and Yahoo, Yahoo would have more relevant results.
I just noticed this when Michael Jackson died. When you typed "michael jackson" into Bing and Google, it was Google who had more relevant results. I just tried that test again and Bing has become much better in the last few days. But those first moments are the most important.
www.itscope.info
You shouldn't have to type in extra words to get relevant search results. If google tells me what I want to know with "David Eddings", why would I go to Bing and type in "David Eddings death"???
Google: 15,700 results, most of them relevant.
Bing: 764 results, again, most of them relevant.
Both were sampled across their page pile.
Nothing whacked-out or totally irrelevant (given the term, it would be tough to do) - but the question is, how relevant were the results?
* Google showed, up-front, scores of entries from other folks who were seeing the same problems - you would know about the patch troubles before leaving the first page, get the updated patch, and have it fixed.
* Bing's top searches showed Microsoft technet articles or Microsoft-owned "community" sites, but nothing at all on the first page pointed to the recent patch hose-up. Many of them would take you down a road pointing to Exchange 5.5 legacy migration issues. Page two would plow you into a bunch of examples of the same problem showing up on archived mailing lists. Nothing about the bad patch, even by page 5...
I didn't use the term to highlight Microsoft's recent goof in patching - I actually used that search term to point out that Google seems to have a better finger on the pulse of Microsoft's products and how to troubleshoot them, well, better than Microsoft itself does.
Now if you were an Exchange admin (or stuck with troubleshooting an error on it), which of the two would give you better (read: faster and more relevant) results?
Obviously not the one that goes "biiiiiinnnnnnnggggg!", eh?
At least from a precision and relevancy standpoint, methinks that Bing has quite a long road ahead of them, if this is any sort of representation of searches that don't involve mundane stuff like travel, restaurants, and the like.
For example, here in Houston there once was a town called Clear Lake, it was absorbed by the city of Houston, but the area has its own feel, and most people still call it clear lake. If you do a local search on google maps for say, "McDonalds, Clear Lake, Texas" you get the McDonald's in the area of Houston that was once Clear Lake.
You do the same search in Bing Local and your first result is a CPA in Dallas, followed by the fast food restaurants in the Dallas area.
If we are to take anything from Microsoft and their intentions, Bing is great for making informed decisions about purchases. Now, I don't know about you, but I am not buying a camera on a regular basis; nor am I using Bing Travel to jet set to my next destination. Bing is relegated to a purchase and shopping engine- seems like a small admission of defeat to me.
Despite the fact that, as the masters in Redmond would like to have you believe, that we are all experiencing search overload, Bing unfortunately does not bring anything revolutionary to the table. Since evolving (read: rebranding) from MSN to Windows Live Search to simply, Live Search- Bing still feels like the same stale experience we can come to expect from Microsoft. Of course the results have become slightly better over the years, as can be expected, we simply have yet to be wowed by Bing. Some features are simply recycled from previous incarnations, CashBack for example. Through the massive ~$100m spending spree, Ballmer would like us to believe however, that Bing is a wholly new experience from Microsoft; and while some may have taken the bait because of curiosity, I doubt many will become permanent switchers.
After pouring an endless amount of money and time into search, Microsoft simply cannot afford to let "good enough" be the metric on which their service can be based off of. It is truly sad to see that Microsoft thinks they can market their way to a better product (or even bribe their way- clubbing.com); and with their television ads proudly proclaiming that Bing cuts the search clutter, the "search overload" (seriously? Who searches "cell phone" without knowing what they want, let alone their carrier support? Heck, even "mom", like on the TV spot.. horrible ads to be sure..), leave much to be desired.
The point of the matter is, Google is the standard when it comes to searching. Whether it is the standard because of great results, their sheer size in the market, or their massive brand loyalty, Google IS the leader- and simply rehashing (albiet with slight tweaks) a poor product will not change the game.
So, what we have now is a Shopping Decision Engine, that caters to those that want to shop online and secondly offers an uninspiring web search.
Leader or not competition is good for consumers and your comments while interesting still do not over shadow the pure need for options. Consumers win when their is options. Maybe with Bing and it's massive marketing people will start to question just how secure it is fold into a one vendor solution. It's just like Microsoft and Windows / Apple and MacOS - choices make a richer market landscape. It forces the compeitition to evolve or get their market share eatten. For Google losing x% of marketshare for search directly affects the bottom line. Google must evolve and add in some of these newer features - some different approaches. Their great golden cow built on "brand loyalty" is nothing but a farse.
In the world of trademarks and copyright--a trademark degrades to the point of indefensibility when it becomes a generic term. This would then allow ANYONE to use the term, without it being attributed to a specific product. One example is Shredded Wheat--which once was a speciic product.
How this works is simple; when I was younger all facial tissue was kleenex, and all pressed foam products were styrofoam--both of which are actually trademarked product names. Under trademark law in the US these companies had to aggressively fight to have their trademarks returned to them AND to halt the generic usage of their trademarks as a discriptive word (kleenex) in order to retain their right to exclusive use of that product name. An example of a company that DID NOT do so? Escalator. Otis Elevator Company did not protect their brand and the word became a generic term.
SO
When we say we are going to "google at Bing" we are actually serving to degrade Google's trademark protection and transforming their brand into a generic term.--Which is really what Msoft is after. This kind of brand desaturation is defocusing for legal departments to defend, marketing departments to educate about, ruinous of brand equity and opens corps up to brand challenges.
Therefore continue to google at Bing--and google at Yahoo--and google map at Mapquest and soon there won't BE a Google(TM) but only a google.
Obfuscatori
- by saplaborg July 2, 2009 5:46 AM PDT
- The video is cool, there's no question about it.
- Reply to this comment
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(35 Comments)But I've tried Bing quite extensively and my opinion is that it still has lots to learn from Google, not only in a technical and reach ability point of view but also in terms of popularity. People actually find it cool to "Google" something. I guess it will be a smaller niche of users who will be "Binging" for information around the web.