During a Q&A session in the press room following the Google I/O keynote today, Googler co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance and fielded some questions. One of them was about his thoughts on the name Bing, the supposed name of Microsoft’s new search engine.
Brin said he didn’t know enough about it to give a suggestion, but that Google is “pretty happy” with the name it chose, which drew laughs. He then goes a bit more into the name. Watch the video below.
I think ‘Bing’ has potential to be iconic.
Certainly better than a lot of start ups.
Typing the letter ‘n’ is a strain on hand muscles. given the choice, users will subconsciously tend to avoid typing it. ‘google’ on the other hand rolls off fingertips like a pebble skipping across water. No muscle strain.
So Bing will probably fail unless Microsoft programmers’ algorithm is some groundbreaking improvement on the google programmers’, who have fallen in love with ‘wikipedia’.
And meanwhile Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.
people dont type gaggl.com to get the website. its built into the browser bar and remembered in the address bar by typing “G”. typing and keywords will not be necessary with next generation “location engines.” everything will have its place. 3 clicks of a mouse and bing your there.
MyLocator .com – Location is King
any name bing or blink is better than live.com
locator guy, you are seriously one of the biggest idiots on the web. Do you think saying “gaggle” makes you smart? Why don’t you go “gaggle” on a tennis ball and stop breathing already.
This is one of the silliest things I ever heard. Not only would the ‘n’ not matter at all if users had to type it, but in the newest browsers, typing ‘b’ and then ‘i’ will most likely be enough to highlight the correct result in the address bar.
seriously. couldnt agree more. a strain on the hand muscles? come on.
actually typing google gets old.
Is this why ESPN.com has no traffic?
bing sucks, what a silly name.
MS search motto “If you can’t beat them at least confuse them.”
MS search brand history:
MSN Search
Windows Live Search
Live Search
Kumo
… and the latest and greatest Bing
You cna’t count Windows Live Search and Live Search as two different things, that’s ridiculous. And Kumo is just Bing’s codename and never even got released with that name, so you can’t count that.
But yeah, they do rebrand a little too frequently. Although I must say the MSN -> Live, big improvement.
I always thought it was a bad strategy to use a name online that’s not obvious how to pronounce. Like, does Windows “live” search rhyme with “give”? or “hive”?
bad bad strategy.
Then again, it worked for .gif and linux.
I’m guessing they’ll go with a campaign wherein “bing” is onomatopoeic, as in…
“What’s the best price on bread?”
*bing!* Stop-N-Shop.
Microsoft would drive more search traffic if they name it Brin instead of Bing
Or “Bong”
why do they keep rebranding their search? its like re arranging the deck chairs on the titanic if the actual search results arent as good as googles
agree, rebranding is a futile effort when your product added value sucks. i.e. AskJeeves rebranded to Ask.com without dramatic market share results
No it’s a different scenario altogether. MS has developed a weak brand image so they need to separate their products from their corporate brand.
yeah right, a different scenario this time:
rebranding Live Search to Bing… that’s great
I can’t argue with that kind of brilliant insight.
I certainly find it hard to judge just how good (relevant, useful, etc) search results are, and I imagine it would be the same for many users.
With such a market, branding can be very effective. In blind taste tests, Pepsi is rated higher than Coca-Cola.
everything aside (as I think branding is important) – but seriously everybody can taste the difference between coke and pepsi so its not a very accurate example…
actually it is a great example and a fact that most people actually can’t tell the difference between coke and pepsi.
You’re correct. Google has actually done internal testing and users cannot tell the difference between search engine results. However, it was discovered that users preferred results that were google branded, even if they weren’t actually results from google: http://adage.co...ticle_id=136847
yes, I think that they need to do a lot more than just rebrand. they need a new concept that puts them in a new space that is not “search” since search=google to most people. http://ferociou...uld-invent.html
Someone needs to tell Microsoft that they are a TERRIBLE web company!
The name ‘google’ isn’t that much better.
Bing has a ring to it.
I like the “But It’s Not Google” acronym joke.
Now THAT’S a reason not use it. Hilarious. It’s not a bad name really. Something for the right brain to latch on to. But let’s talk about Google’s logo…
because Microsoft’s logo really has one up on Googles? (o wait – you are right, MS has the whole blending the ’s’ and the ‘o’ thing going and, get this, its in italics – wooooooo)
>
Microsoft would drive more search traffic if they name it Brin instead of Bing
i i think so too, sounds funny but it can work=)
i think they can get a better name than BING
Gaggl’s name nor their garbled search engine spam results put them where they are today. It was the patent 360 and some funding. Gaggl will not be able to compete with next generation natural language location based social domain networks. ever wonder why gaggl is not using the name google for a social site.? my theory is that they dont want or need a leading social site because all they are concerned about is making money on adcliks from the adense network (aka other peoples websites). gaggl dont make money from their home page when an estimated 65% of inc comes from other peoples websites. and estimates as high as 30 per cent of that are considered monkey clicks. G is happy with what fills their pockets and nothing more nothing less. organizing the worlds information? give me a break. they must think we are monkeys. they might be right ………most people probably are.
LaughLocator.com – the jokes on you
Wasn’t there a Friends episode involving the name Chandler Bing …
Bing. It’s Gaelic for “Thy turkey is done.”
But MS are leaders in the cloud man, the cloud!!!
Yeah, another great name for that: Azure
But man, the cloud is like, the risk free and totally outsourced perfect world!! Don’t diss the cloud!
You know, as soon as a manager in your organisation mentions the word ‘cloud’, they instantly get -50 kudos.
The simple theory for search engines.
Ye who have the most CPU cycles, disk, ram and network wins.
If not then you need smarter people…yes, you can buy that!
When I first heard the name “bing” I thought that BIll Gates had misspelled the word “bling”.
haha
Yeah, ‘Bing’ does not seem to be that great a name.
PopFly, SkyDrive, Zune, the list goes on of lame names that ’someone’ comes up with for Microsoft to use.
Maybe they should have spent a handful of the reported 100 mil. they are to spend on ads and come up with a really good name.
Ya gotta wonder?
What do you think about the name LXforty?
I think it would be the best name.
I think people joked about “Hulu” in the same way.
I loved the name Hulu from day one and hated the name Zune from day one so… not sure what my point is here. I hate Bing.
They would be better off writing a $100m check to Disney for the Go.com domain and being done with it once and for all. They can then add wildcard 301 redirects to resolve the subdomains that Disney uses. I guess this can get a bit complicated but people would forget the Disney association within a year or two. I miss Infoseek.
Sounds to me like you are a biased google fan bastard!
And they could bring back the original Go.com brand.
http://buoyantd...go_logo_01.html
I guess I just really like Go.com and the fact that users can give up a third of the way through typing Google and get there.
good call re: go. btw has anyone visited there lately? it is horrible looking.
Yesterday I was binging for hours but did not find any answer.
haha bing it!
Price Waterhouse and Coopers Lybrand spent $5,000,000 to come up with PriceWaterhouse Coopers.
Throwing money at it won’t solve the problem.
How many people said that about Google when they heard that name?
I’m sure I’m just repeating what much smarter people have already said, but competing with google on their turf is going to be tough, and the cost of competing will, I think at best, break even with the benefits.
If anything it will be a new way of conceiving of search that will blindside google. I can’t conceive of what that will be, and neither can they. Only something that big will topple them.
Disclaimer: I heart google
What ever they paid some marketing company to come up with the name was a huge waste of money. It sounds like something my 18month old says. And since I first heard about it I keeping thinking it’s Bling, not Bing.
Even if they are trying to get away from the MS brand everyone is going to know it’s really MS Live with a new name and some features that will not quite work right. Kinda like XP/Vista.
Google is the king of search and everyone knows it.
Smart, Steve. The word “Googol”, which inspired Google’s name was actually coined by a 9-year-old kid that was given the task of naming a really big number.
9 years ago, people thought “Google” was a silly name, but now it’s become synonymous with web searching.
One thing that bothers me about cult brand loyalists is that they don’t realize that competition is what makes great companies excel and come out with great products, to get that “competitive edge”.
Instead of bashing everything that competes with Google/(Insert cult brand name here), realize that you and I (the consumers) reap the benefits of this new competition.
Actually the developers of Google did mean it to be “googol” but they couldn’t spell.
bing that
How about the name Gogle? or better yet something a baby would say – goooogle.
I think Microsoft is doing ok with the name Bing. Google would be a stupid name too if it was a tiny search engine.
Bing is not a great name, but I have to admit I won’t forget it anytime soon.
I will forget it at the very first moment I run my first web search using their engine
That’s a great attitude. Hate anything MS-made before you’ve even tried it. Very open minded and very objective of you. I’m sure you’re an extremely creative and innovative person.
it’s what to be expected from these techcrunch readers and their “open source” thinking but close minded ways.
I think Bing is a pretty good name. Sticks in my memory, but then I was a big fan of the now-historic Ricochet Rabbit cartoon, “Bing, bing, bing.”
What they really need is not re-branding but a new concept. Wolfram Alpha may not be the product of the decade but it’s the right way to go. Nobody will ever do Google’s job better than Google.
I think the company that buys twitter will make the biggest steps in the next years.
If Microsoft could/would/can crack the realtime cookie; there’s nothing wrong with “Live”.
Lets see….Bing…Ding…Dong…then there is donk, bong or how about Red i express…or not…ha ha
oh..maybe wing_it
or plasma….o… blast….gas…fuel…or
REDGAS o…..greengas….STRICK….
bada bing! i like it.
seems they’ve secured the domain name since 1996? http://www.cool....com/d/bing.com
No it was already registered it was transfered to them late 08 or early 09
Hi ppl i don’t like bing it’s same like bingo lolol i think kumo it’s better.
What you think about the name Gubb ?
The first problem with Live was that it could be pronounced 2 different ways whereas bing can not.
I like the name bing its simple and easy to pronounce in English don’t know how it is in other languages.
For people saying the name is stupid so are cnet, gizmodo, engadget, yahoo, google, techcrunch but you probably use all of these in one form or another.
The want you to say “yeah, microsoft, search *bing* and its there!”
Tech news:
1994: “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” becomes YAHOO. While the new name is cute (and a little better than the old one) they are headed nowhere with that kind of name. They hould have called it yellowpages or internet pages.
1995: A website called “ebay” will launch today… dunno what it does (or what a website is) but what kind of name is that anyway??????
1997: Today, two geniuses registered “google” as their domain name (WTF????? I thought you said they were geniuses!). Their service better be good, or else tehyre going straight to the deadpool…
2006: News from Japan: Nintendo is coming back with a new game console. It does look good, but it has the stupidiest name ever: Wii. The name will kill the product FOR SURE cause no way people will like it.
2007: Microsoft wants to compete with the ipod. Theyre calling their thing “Zune”. No comments here.
It’s a classic case of what leads and what follows. The value of a name will follow the value the product creates. Period.
People are only giving such attention to the name because that’s the headline about the project that most recently was talked about.
In and of itself, the name is a secondary, minor thing. Yes, it can be done poorly. But Microsoft is an excellent marketing company. They just suck at helping people.
look forward for this new BING…
I have been happy using LIVE…it has come long way… results are EXACT as that of goog and yhoo
i like that MS changes the main Live.com page with different pictures on background…they are creative…
Binging and purging.
what is the use of having a better name?There is no way anyone can beat google search.
I’m pretty sure that’s what people were saying about altavista etc. before google came out.
I’m going to start calling you TwitCrunch writers the Techarazzi. You guys jock these start-up CEO’s/founders like they are scholars or something. Who CARES what “Sergey” says? Google was pure luck. Right place at the right time. His opinion is no more important to me than Sal Masikala’s ok?
Tuna Mike
Did you just write that straight from my brain?
they should call it bang… it would give them more bang for the bucks they spend on advertising, considering the erotic tone to it…
Which sounds better?
1. I googled it.
2. I binged it.
3. I banged it!
We have a winner!
Bada Bing!
http://en.wikip..._Bada_Bing1.jpg
Go Bing some sopranos and godfather references on wiki
It’s also a heck of a lot faster to touch type into a mobile phone browser, no waiting for the timeout to get the double letters in.
@MG,
This is Michael Martin who asked Sergey that question at Google IO.
It was great meeting you and having lunch with you Matt Cutts & Danny Sullivan there – as well Michael Gray interjecting via Twitter
,Michael Martin
Are you keeping the HTC phone?
I already have a G1 and like the keyboard but I am warming up to the Ion as its onscreen keyword is extremely responsive without any fat fingering issues.
Although I did see one sell for $760 today on EBay.
So Microsoft wants me to go to Bing.com everytime I want to google something? funny!
Can’t stand the name!!!!
Can’t stand the “backround for presentation view”
(Not relaxing colors either)
Low class expressional name for a high-tech society, even “star” would have been better than
bing? What follows next….Zing?
I think you have all completely missed the point. Well, the first twenty or so of you – I stopped reading after that. Here is the point:
When Google was launched, there was a desperate need for accurate web search. It fixed that problem and became popular. When Bing was launched, that problem was still fixed. Nobody is pulling out their hair because Google didn’t produce an adequate result – chances are if it’s not in Google results it doesn’t exist, and the exceptions to this are so few and far between that only a bunch of utter morons like the cretins at Microsoft would bother spending any time or money trying to reinvent it.
It’s not a terrible thing though, because this sort of useless idea means that there are plenty of real opportunities left for small firms and programmers to jump on and become the next billionaires of the industry. Not that a billionaire is worth anything anymore…
I think that this name is not suited to a MS product and it’s not get popularity by this name..