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The next Bing thing

Google’s search citadel is under attack. First came the ‘fact engine’ in the form of Wolframalpha, and now Microsoft has unleashed on cyber denizens its ‘decision engine’ Bing.

With a purported $100 million in advertising budget, Bing is seen as a relaunch of their Live Search engine and means an early burial for Kumo in Microsoft’s brand graveyard.

Bing, already live and running two days ahead of schedule, has elicited mixed reactions from users. No one expects Bing to displace Google as the general search tool, not even Microsoft, but for those who have been eyeing top-dollar advertising online, Bing is expected to bring more bang for the buck, primarily because it narrows down search results to what is most pertinent, including a complete list of dealers in your location. And with the additional cashback incentive thrown in, shoppers are expected to warm up to the new engine on the block.

Bing, according to its creators, goes beyond search as it provides users with intuitive tools to help decision-making. It focuses on four key verticals: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition, or finding a local business. Now, for those suffering form a serious case of information overload, this means that navigation gets simpler with the search results. What’s even better is that if you hover over the results, you get a brief description of what each link contains; that way go further only if it appeals to you.

Other features that are being bandied about as an improvement over other engines include the visual presentation of the website, faster load times and the image and video content aggregation. With Microsoft planning to add more features to Bing, it might have made 
its strongest impact on the search engine market yet, but what really remains to be seen is whether Bing can make a dent in Google’s massive presence online.

anshuman@khaleejtimes.ae