Why Google might want you to think it's scared of Bing
So the Googlies are, allegedly, gnashing and wailing.
Their ears, their nostrils, even their fully formed eyebrows are twitching beyond all human control.
Though I am not one of those who necessarily subscribes to the idea that Googlies ever have extreme emotions, the rumor is that they are in a fizzy tizzy. Because of Bing, the new search fragrance from Microsoft.
According to a report, Google's Sergey Brin has ordered some of his finest brains to take Bing apart as if it were a secretly smuggled advance exemplar of the Palm Pre.
He wants to know how it thinks. He wants to know who its friends are. He wants its very innards examined for performance-enhancing algorithms.
I would very much like to believe this story. Mainly because I want the word "Bing" to become part of the language, but also because Bing seems like a rather fine product.
However, a small part of me, somewhere between my spleen and my liver, is sending a warning signal. You see, last Christmas I read the highly amusing Michael Wolff biography of Rupert Murdoch.
In it, Wolff describes how Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, encouraged him to hang with a younger crowd. You know, some of the folks that might just decimate the newspaper industry as we know it. Folks such as Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
So perhaps that place between my spleen and liver has been aroused by the fact that the newspaper that broke the "Google is blinging scared" story was Murdoch's own, and very much beloved, New York Post.
Of course it's possible that someone at Google was trembling so much that he spilled his tale of fear to a friend at the New York Post.
However, when you're perceived as being a little bit of a, well, monopoly, isn't it nice to occasionally bathe in the idea that there is a serious threat to your throne and your, um, pension? Might you just be tempted to find a nicely engineered way of slipping that story out there just to improve the way you are regarded?
It's a little like movies of the last 15 years or so in which the male protagonist has to show his vulnerable side to get the girl.
Because he sheds a tear or two and visits a psychologist to talk about his mama, we end up thinking his belching, slobbering, swilling, snorting, slightly uncouth persona was all actually rather charming.
He does get the girl, though. And that, for him, is really all that matters.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
I bet the folks at Google do enjoy feeling like the underdog though, hopefully it will also make them think like the underdog because i think it's time they started really innovating with their search, it's been bothering me that the most popular search engine has remained relatively unchanged for quite a few years
Oh, and they're definitely not the underdog in search. Bing as legit competition - yes. Google as the underdog to Bing -- hell no! Nobody in Google thinks that, and nobody outside of Google thinks that either.
Conclusion: People used Bing out of curiosity, and returned to Google out of habit.
Google gives me 75% of all my traffic, followed by direct traffic, then Yahoo, and Bing, Ask, etc.
From what I can tell, Bing hasn't made much of a dent (after the first week).
My websites are varied and wide ranging in content and so I suspect that it is the same story for other web sites.
The trend you describe is actually something I expect to see -- initial curiousity causing a spike, and then the traffic dropping down a bit - but not necessarily all the way down to pre-Bing levels since Bing does appear to be a legit search option (and the spike will help a few people discover that).
Having said that, I don't place much stock in your anecdote. Perhaps if you weren't always so quick to post negative/trolling/flaming comments on MS-related stories it would be easier to believe you. Having said that, I do acknowledge there is no trolling/flaming in your comment above -- just a question of credibility.
Everything I post is true to the best of my ability.
I do not agree with false representation and value honesty.
If something comes out negative, it is because it is.
You are free to disagree of course, but I base my assessment on facts and history.
And I am vocal on injustice in all forms.
Anyway, the Bing spike appears to be over from what I can see.
Even AOL has been higher in the last few days.
Time will tell anyway if this is the case for Bing in general, or Bings referrals to just my web properties.
The other possibility is that Google Analytics is misreporting Bing referrals.
But I doubt that.
Like I said, your anecdote matches my expectations, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's true.
Ahem..
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10266390-56.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0
Your credibility is shot, my friend :)
If you have monitored Microsoft's behavior lately you know well that they won't just sit back and let themselves get pushed back down.
In the end, they bundle even if they know they are going to get in trouble. However the wrath of the EU may have put them into line once and for all.
Haven't heard of Byng? Just Google it. (Because "google" is a verb in the dictionary, and Bing is just a ... something)
Something to think about in the Google vs. Microsoft thought process. Since Microsoft has at the very least matched Google in terms of search quality, perhaps Google should try to match MSN in terms of portal quality. I tried to like Google's news but Microsoft's is so much better and broader.
Poor results, bloated interface, and gives the ability to cover your tracks means it is a no go in the enterprise.
Reminds me how MS was going to rule things with One Care and Live, and Zune, and ... YAMF.
(Yet Another Microsoft Failure)
1) Don't use useless rhetoric -- try making a well-informed point instead
2) Try to disguise your MS hatred. Obvious bias will only alienate people from your point of view
3) Try to stay on topic
What did you mean by this point:
"gives the ability to cover your tracks"
I assume you're referring to the video search, but I'm not sure because that's not a true statement. Enterprise admins can force the video results filter to remain on, no matter what the individual settings are.
What did you mean by this statement:
"Reminds me how MS was going to rule things with One Care and Live, and Zune, and ... YAMF."
How do you rule the world with an antivirus? Or a bunch of web services? Or an mp3 player? Do you have a reference of MS bragging that they would rule the world with these products? How are they even related to the topic at hand (Google using Bing to demonstrate that antitrust regulation isn't required in search)?
As far as I am concerned Microsoft can keep there bloated software & services along with their viruses. To say that Microsoft is not a monopoly or to righteously uphold as the ideal provider of all that is electronically related is absurd.
Sure Google has competition, and Google like any other company researches their competition, does that make them afraid, no I don't think so. I use google because it works, i've used it in the past along with other search engines and google has always been the best.
And maybe some people do like Bing, they are entitled to it. Perfectly fine with me if they want to use something else. However there is a big difference between a search engine that works and one that is mass marketed by a company that is purely anticompetitive (itsbetterwithwindows.com).
When you add the ton of abstraction Microsoft has to add to do what Windows does... yeah, it bogs down. That is par for course. When hardware vendors have bad drivers, yeah, Windows has problems. When software vendors (e.g. Adobe with their Flash plugin) introduces vulnerabilities, yeah, it happens.
Not every error that occurs in Windows can be attributed to Microsoft.
As for viruses. That is simple numbers. You don't waste time coding for 5% of the population. That would be like advertising for 5% of a demographic. That is retarded. You go after the 95%. May miss more, but your odds of getting a hit go up too.
As for monopolies, I don't consider Microsoft a monopoly. Don't want to use Microsoft? Use Mac OS. Use Linux. There are other OS's out there. Microsoft is not the only game in town. Google is not a monopoly either. There are other search engines. There is a difference between having market share, and being a monopoly. A monopoly is when you have no other choice, like when you have Comcast as the only cable provider in your area, and you have to pay them for crappy service because there is no one to switch to. That is a monopoly.
Personally, I look forward to the day one of these companies tells their detractors where they can stick it. No reason anyone should be punished because people LIKE their product.
As for bing, I hope it does well. I mean, seriously, would you rather say "I binged Jessica Biel" or "I googled Jessica Biel". Be honest!
"As for monopolies, I don't consider Microsoft a monopoly."
I have 5 Windows licences and 1 laptop and 1 PC. + a EeePC running LInux which is irrelevant for this topic.
How did I end up with so many Windows licenses? Everytime I buy a PC it comes with another Windows OS. Considering the amount of time it takes to bring out a new version of Windows, you usually end up with more OSes than PCs.
Why can't the public just buy PCs with what they want? Without an OS, with Linux, with this or that software. If I laready have Windows, why do I need to buy another one when I upgrade my PC?
Instead, the general public buy a PC with Windows, MS Works, IE, Messenger, and every other Microsoft product. They have made a business out of being the default.
Then you say Microsoft isn't a monopoly. If that was the case, why does the consumer end up paying for Microsoft's stuff, even when they don't want it?
Wake up. They have the monopoly for PC operating systems and office productivity. It's so obvious that it is beyond debate.
And with that power, they bundle their stuff, which was once the innovation and ideas of someone else.
To me that is theft. And the law says that it is illegal to bundle. It is illegal for a monopoly to gain a new market with their existing monopoly. e.g., they bundle IE and Netscape goes out of business.
These laws are here to protect the consumers and competition.
Are you a consumer? Do you care about your rights?
Would you be annoyed if every time you bought a pair of shoes that you had to spend the same amount on a pair of socks that cost the same as the shoes? It would be especially annoying if you already had too many pairs of socks. Microsoft have dome deals whereby they sell their socks with every shoe that is sold. That is what it amounts to.
You can buy systems with Linux. You can be bare-bones (hardware-only) systems with no OS. You can buy parts and build a system yourself.
If/when demand for systems pre-loaded with Linux increases, more will be available, the same for hardware-only systems.
Other than the two notebooks I've purchased over the last ten years, I haven't bought a computer with an OS pre-loaded, and I refresh my desktop every year. If I can do it, others can too. It is called 'choice'.
Microsoft Windows is not a monopoly, even though they try very hard to be so. You can still buy PC's with Linux pre-installed or build it from bare-bones. Hardware manufacturers not offering Linux computers are getting rare.
Of course if you go to retailers you have no option, this is simply because retailers care about what sells the most and right now it's Windows, even though there is a growing demand for Linux computers. I would say right now the demand for Linux computers is at 25% at most (looking at the numbers from Dell for the netbook with both the Linux and Windows option), retailers dont care about that, when it will be 50% they'll think about it more. Then again the online stores are different, they sell whatever they can, niche market or not.
The less Microsoft products in my life, the better
I've not even had a look at bing out of curiosity so erm bye
- by gsosbee June 24, 2009 10:14 AM PDT
- MSN.COM prevents me from documenting fbi/cia crimes in the financial markets; then, MSN.COM bans me permanently:
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(31 Comments)http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/hatephonecallsan.html
----------------------------------
the banned report:
Ultimately The Markets Must Collapse!
Illegal funding for fbi/cia global terror campaign:
What needs to be funded?
http://www.sosbeevfbi.com/part4-worldinabo.html
How are the fbi/cia crimes funded?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0401/S00151.htm
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2009/03/35293.php
or
http://rochester.indymedia.org/newswire/display/22314/index.php
http://sosbeevfbi.ning.com/forum/topics/funding-sources-for-usas-intel
QUESTIONS! geral sosbee (956)371-5210