Microsoft: Bing needs to improve when news breaks
One of the biggest news stories in years caught Microsoft's Bing a little off guard.
The flood of traffic on the Internet following reports that Michael Jackson had been rushed to a Los Angeles hospital last Thursday, where he later died, has been well documented: Google at first thought the surge was an attack on its servers. Microsoft released statistics Thursday indicating it, too, witnessed a surge in traffic related to Jackson, but admitted that Bing News could have done a much better job delivering relevant stories during the two or so frantic hours in which searches went through the roof.
"By most reports, Bing did not deliver the best experience for our customers soon after TMZ posted the news on their blog," wrote Jacquelyn Krones, senior product planner for Bing News. "As Search Engine Journal pointed out, we had the story but it was hidden at the bottom of the main page and even deeper in our xRank result." Bing's xRank is supposed to track the most popular people surfacing on the Internet on a given day: Karl Malden currently ranks highest in xRank.
Microsoft has a switch it calls "news go big" that it can throw in the event of a huge breaking news story like Jackson's death. Usually, images are the first thing Bing searchers see when searching for a celebrity such as Jackson, but Microsoft can change the placement of those results in the rare event of a breaking news story that generates "unusual activity."
Apparently, the company feels it could have done that more quickly in the minutes following TMZ's report. "...In the case of breaking news such as this, we will focus on ensuring that the whole experience quickly accommodates the surge in customers' interest," Krones wrote.
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Michael Jackson-related searches took off following reports that he had been rushed to the hospital last week.
(Credit: Microsoft)
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
Too many people on a server and it crashes.
I dug into your bagel heads story and consistently found the same images of the same two guys. I'm sorry but two guys posted and copied across multiple sites picking up the same story does not make this a fad.
Because if they're manually promoting stories then clearly they have a problem with their page ranking algorithms. The whole point of having an algorithm-based search engine is that it does these things automatically. They shouldn't have to pay people to surf TMZ all day and manually bump stories up.
It is set up that way now, try it. Go to bing and search Johnny Depp. Notice that "images of johnny depp" is at the top of the page. Now search Michael Jackson. Notice that "news about michael jackson" is at the top of the page and "images of michael jackson" and "videos of michael jackson" are moved below the news results.
It's OK though it is a common mistake to not to read the article you are replying to.
I did read the article - twice. I understand that it's the format that changed. The point still remains that MS has to have someone manually respond to big stories to move them up on the page. Whether what used to be above them is pictures or something else doesn't matter. Their system should automatically make these adjustments.
http://domusinc.blogspot.com
Before this, there was an article about how Yahoo had more relevant results than Google during hurricane Katrina.
The fact that this requires manual intervention indicates yet another major flaw in Microsoft's search algorithm.
"Usually, images are the first thing Bing searchers see when searching for a celebrity such as Jackson, but Microsoft can change the placement of those results in the rare event of a breaking news story"
what it says that in a high interest news story they can move the photo results from the top of the page to get the news results up to the top of the page. Reading comprehension is good!
Not my experience since using for a month now.
>Bing needs to either start over
Really, what do you technically base this on?
>or get a major upgrade in general!
Perhaps tweak and improve.
Do you think the no. 1 search might be in need of a major upgrade too? They seem to trail Bing in UI, Twitter RT, Video.
Google hasn't given me these problems, nor have the other search engines.
Also, to many of us, a fancier UI, Twitter, and video aren't relevant to many/most searches.
For example, when I perform an image search on Bing, I *cannot* hit CTRL+click to open an image in a new tab/window. Instead, it just opens the search result in the original search window. I have to right click and then click on "open in new page" to get it to open in a new tab.
It's lame behavior like that is super annoying about Bing. It's NOT for the power user.
Apparently in IE, if you hit CTRL+click on a Bing image search result, it will open the page in a new tab.
Try this in FireFox or Chrome, and it just opens the search result in the original page and you lose the search results.
I'll stick to another search engine that doesn't just work with its own company's browser, thank you.
I want there to be lots of healthy competition in the marketplace so that Microsoft doesn't just sit on their laurels and stop innovating.
But then again Bing does get some things right :)
http://www.bing.com/search?q=should+I+get+a+pc+or+a+mac&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all&qs=n
I believe that this feature alone is playing a major role in Google's success and I find it unbelievable that none of the smart alec's working for Google's competitor's cannot fathom or copy this simple point....
http://www.taranfx.com/blog/?p=1016
Problem solved!
????????????????????
- by crisfrankel July 7, 2009 6:00 PM PDT
- One great thing about Bing is using it for shopping... Search the term wii in Bing. Notice at the top there will be a sponsored link for a percent off anything on eBay. Just follow the link.
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