It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as go Google yourself, but now you can go Bing yourself. (Then again, Google took a few years to become a verb.). Bing, Microsoft’s latest effort to compete in search, is now live on a “preview” site. The key thing to pay attention to is the guided search assistance on the left and the different experiences for the travel, images, video, maps, news, and shopping tabs.
A few things to try:
- An ambiguous Web search: “turkey” (do you want images, recipes, facts, or a map of the country? The topic guides in the left explore pane will help you narrow your search).
- A travel search: “SFO to JFK”
- Video search: “Simpsons” (hover over the thumbnail to play the video)
- Image search: “Rollercoasters” (notice the infinite scroll).
- A health search: “Sore throat”
- Shopping: “Digital SLR” (sort by price or brand, get average ratings and CashBack).
- Maps: “BBQ” (automatically knows what city you are in and offers up geo-appropriate results).
- News Search: “Bing” (what else?)
Check it out. Try a few searches and then tell us in comments if you will ever go back.
BING – hmmm B.ut I.ts N.ot G.oogle
It took a NUT to say that.
I was quite excited about the initial screenshots, but now that have tried it, I must say I am a bit underwhelmed.
it’s good but results are still way off.
http://www.clasilistados.org
bing is so much better!
That this acronym got old the day that Bing was announced is pretty telling to how desperate the Microsoft haters are to grasp at every last straw to knock the search engine.
Google is the leader of search, because it’s been their priority and passion from the start. Microsoft is just doing it for the money, simple as.
They fail at practically everything, from their pathetic OS, to browser, and now to their search engine. Their code could be elegant in everything they do, but their UI design is horrible. That’s what matters foremost. The only thing which comes close to decent is the Zune UI.
Ask yourself — would anybody give a sh*t about Bing if it wasn’t from Microsoft? No, no they wouldn’t, that’s your answer.
Keep drinking that juice, I hope you and the rest of the fanboys choke on it and die!
Technically you’d be drowning on juice, not choking. See:
http://www.goog...-8&oe=UTF-8
From what I’ve heard, Bing would hit you with bags of oranges instead.
So Google’s not doing it for the money? You should become a comedian buddy. Ignorance must be bliss.
As for Google’s many and varied successes: Google video, Google Catalog search, Notebook, Dodgeball, Jaiku, Mashup editor, Shared Stuff, Web Accelerator, Google Answers, Google Coupons, Voice Search, Google Viewer, Google Checkout, Orkut, Knol, Hello, Joga Bonito, Lively… would you like me to continue? They are ALL epic failures.
As for what they’ve done well: search, Google docs (arguable, but an acquisition (Writely)), Google earth (acquisition again – Keyhole), maps (acquisition again – where 2), youtube (arguable success, but again an acquisition) and Android (arguable and again an acquisition). Even Wave was developed in Sydney by the Where 2 guys. So, other than search, what have they done well? Answer: not much.
Good points. However the Where 2 guys are working for Google now, and have been for years. Google Sydney is still Google.
@Seth
I know they work for Google, but they still ‘acquired’ the talent through a previous acquisition. Furthermore, it’s yet to be declared a success. Regardless, my point still stands: yes Google is currently controlling internet search, but it has had little success in other areas. Consequently, any criticism of MS for “failing at everything” (leaving aside the fact that it is patently wrong) could also be leveled at Google.
Have to agree with Trev
@Trev,
Companies acquire talent all the time, that’s what makes them better. That’s forethought as a company, and helps them create better products. Look at all Google has done with Maps since they acquired the base technology.
And you’re forgetting the biggest and most important product they run now (which is the only thing that’s allowed them to sit where they are now)… ads. If it wasn’t for Adsense/Adwords they’d have $0 for any of their products. Not to mention how many other people/companies have made quite a bit of money off the ad train thanks to Adsense. I’d have to say that’s a pretty successful product.
They bought adsense and urchin . Google groups , code and gmail are good I don’t think they bought those ..
What we are discussing Trev, is relevancy in search results and Google is way ahead in that department. I still wonder why my wife searches using Yahoo or friends using msn/live/bing??? If I want to find something I go to Google becasue it delivers!
“They fail at practically everything”
Microsoft fail at everything? Here I thought they were one of the most successfull companies since the invention of the PC.
Ditto. I just wish my bank account was cursed with the dividends of a failure like microsoft.
Google’s search is failing fast too. Their algorithm is flawed in that more links = more reputable… problem is old sites stay high in the ranking.
try searching for any tech tutorial and most likely you will get a couple 5 year old results on the front page.
hey, you must b living on mars; having 90% control of the PC market globally is a failure? Then tell us the successful company. Is it Apple that can’t make an OS run on more than one kind of device at a time? MS makes products that runs on thousands devices, tell others to do that successfully, then we can trash them off. In addition, I guess they also failed at servers and xBox????
I’m a C++ developer and I’ve never been a huge fan of microsoft’s – i couldn’t stand vista until its first service pack (now it’s somewhat bareable).
Bing, on the other hand, after using it for a week, is a better solution than anything else microsoft has put out.
Someone said something about search being google’s passion, and microsoft just doing this for the money – I think they are being incredibly naive if they think google is in this just to satisfy their passions.
I have been very satisfied with bing’s results, and living in a capitalist society, I am very happy that google’s monopoly (they practically run my life
– because now, finally, google has some real competition – and that is a breeding ground for innovation.
For the first time, I *bow* to microsoft.
I am curious as to why SP1 made Vista bearable for you? Considering SP1 was mostly an upgrade in performance, and most modern computers performed flawlessly with Vista before that (especially if you used Aero and you had a half decent (non-integrated) graphics card).
Truly, unsubstantiated negative comments truly irritate me, especially when it’s very general. Do I hear a baaa? People are sheep; stop following the crowd, try and use the product regardless of other people’s opinions (Baaaa!). Then make your own conclusion.
Mojave was a very interesting experiment that was even repeated for people like you.
Feel free to watch the videos: http://www.micr...ave-experiment/
People loved Mojave, which was just a relabeled Windows Vista, although they claimed they absolutely hated Vista, and would much prefer XP.
How funny and original!
True originality would been posting – FIRST
It is an interesting further foray into search and if it evolves into a an advanced semantic search then it could bring some healthy competition to Google.
I am leaving tomorrow to speak at SMX Advanced in Seattle where Microsoft will officially launch Bing on June 3rd – so it will be interesting to be there to see/hear the true vision behind it.
The question is what will Microsoft give away at that event to keep up with Google giving away free Android phones at Google IO last week?
,Michael Martin
Sorry, this news feature is not supported in your location.
…
LOL
you got that right.. it’s Bing, Bietch! lolz
Michael Martin You are my hero… LoL
from now on whenever someone says Bing, I will forever think -But it’s not Google.. ha.. ha..
Priceless…
I prefer “Because It’s Not Google”
Bitch, Its Not Google.
If their party at SMX Advanced was any indication, they’re willing to spend serious dollars to promote and enhance BING. They treated us advertisers well tonight!
I tried a 40 or so trial keywords on Blindsearch.fejus.com.
Most of my results were Google, but a large number were from Bing and Yahoo.
The split was maybe: 40% Google, 35% Bing, 25% Yahoo.
So why does Google have a 70% market share?
My guess is its links from Firefox and people using Google out of habit.
That said, I switched to Bing for a long-term trial run. So far, I like it.
Remember:
BING stands for the recursive acronym:
Bing is Not Google.
is that full form of bing???
the reason bing sounds strange is because it’s new. it will catch on.
Also the reason you believe google sounds good as a verb is because of hindsight bias. It was horrible in 1998.
As was Wii. Man, I remember the “outcry” over how stupid Wii sounded and now no-one cares. There was a somewhat smaller outcry over Vista too – bizarrely Vista turned out to be a better name than an operating system in the end.
Amazing is the word!
I’m surprised with the ease of use….. refined search results….. brilliant user interface….. it’s simply marvelous.
exactly – i love it. first image search turned up a spot on result by color/animal…very impressed with first runs of terms and language…
Holly crap, it doesn’t suck.
Yes. i dont quiet understand? How can it not suck ??????????
Is this really from microsoft?
It’s more organized and you have categories to hit the exact option you are looking for. Hope something new from Google arsenal.
Prem
I really like some of the contextual information that shows up. I did a search for UP and movie times in my area showed up. Also: Holy Friendfeed juice. It’s in the top five search results for the folks I tested out.
Interesting, but I wonder how many people will adopt using Bing over Google in their regular routines?
Don’t know what the fuzz, try to make some searches and compare them with google and get different search results totally. It is even worth on a local lever. And i don’t see here none of the side bar on the left all i have is search. What about allowing to get media rss of this search result today you can’t live without it
let’s check them again in a month
@iPolitics
This is great. Google needs some competition. I’m going to give this engine a real try – use it for a month, see if i find a problem with it
I actually think that “Go Bing Yourself” sounds kind of catchy. It’s an alternative to “Go F*** Yourself!” It seems very well organized and I also like that Microsoft seemed to give heavier weight to reputable websites in their search results.
Yes definately aint google ,
Guess who owns bingsucks.com …
http://bit.ly/K7Uw4
ironic huh!
classic find
Not that ironic really. They’d be pretty silly *not* to have bought it. Ditto f*ckbing.com and every other “logical” attack URL – you’ll find that google or google’s agents own most of the “logical” anti google .coms as well. When you’re that big, someone will certainly buy those URLs if you don’t get there first, either to attack you, to try and sell them to you, or just for a laugh. IIRC approx 20 seconds after they started allowing curse words in .com URLs back in er, 1999 I think, I hit “buy” on “F*ckmicrosoft.com” – and I was too late. (I was in the “just for a laugh” category in case you were wondering)
im impressed by the quality of results.
They no longer have the cashback links.
Their focus on the local is interesting.
However, AAfter search [ http://aafter.com ] is focusing on local for a while – nothing new here.
As am I, I have actually REALLY enjoyed the bing experience and will probably be using it for a while to see if it works under more real-world conditions, and not just my contrived queries.
That is actually great results. Amazing. I thought it would be crap. Maybe another Kuil or Wolfram whatever. Lol.
BING – But it Nails Google. it actually works.
Here in Belgium we get something that looks like a live search page with a bing logo.
Maybe that’s it. I live in the Netherlands and get the same “live” experience.
Ah!
You can select Country in the right upper corner.
I am in California, and it looks very suspiciously like the old Live Search. In fact, it is almost identical, particularly the “video” search. I used their “video search” before and was impressed, now, on “Bing”, if you click on the “video” tab, it is the same as old Live Search.
When you type in a city you can get the weather forecast right in the search results, or when you type in a company you can get the stock quote in the search results. These are little things, but Google should have done this stuff a long time ago. When you have a monopoly you get complacent. Google may no longer have a monopoly with Bing on the scene. Bing may not unseat Google, but hopefully it will make it better.
Did you try entering a company stock in google? I has been showing stock quotes, with graphs for a long time. Try this: http://www.goog...oq=&aqi=g10
not a fan of the picture search. i would like to see the size of the pic right away and not have to scroll my mouse over it. travel search looks good but i rarely travel. vid search isn’t bad but it’s limited. much better than Live or whatever it was called but I’m not switching up from google.
You can click the “Show Details” button on the upper right of the image results, and it will show the sizes for all of them. It will also remember that setting the next time you go back.
LOL, too used to see that kind of a plain layout only in Google Ads. So this layout makes it look like “meh”.
Sorry, I still like Google.
lol, liar….I know you did some side by side searchs and actually saw that bing gave you better results that is100x more organized. but because its from MSFT you just want to hate it. lol, i actually really laughed at you with your 1st line….I did a lot of side by side comparisons and its google’s results that look really plain. because you can’t even be true to yourself, it’s people like you who would send innocent people to jail….so I will tell you this: GO BING YOURSELF.
the results Bing gives is really good, it now gives you the correct spelling when you miss spell a word, plus the definition at the top of the list….I wil be using it over google from now on, it is that good…..I just made it my default search.
type in a foreign currency (e.g. HKD) and you get the FX rate, sweet!
Google too does that. Nothing new there.
Yup, agree with nearly everyone here – the results are quite good (relevant, organized, can be filtered) and the user experience is quite nice too.
Love the awesome pictures they have on the home page. Love the fact that videos play directly in the same window too.
I’m quite pleasantly surprised at the amount of thought and effort that MS has put into this.
It’s still a little rough around the edges, but is no doubt the strongest competition to Google I’ve seen so far.
So long Google … I’m a Binger now
lol i agree. all the search results i get are very good and i really like this interface.
+1
Me too. Default search in chrome is now Bing
How? I’ve been trying to add this in to no avail
It seems like a pretty nice engine to at least try out for a while.
Hi Erick, I think you meant “sore throat” not “soar throat” LOL
All AAPL fanboys looking at ways and means to bash Bing,check this :
http://twitpic.com/6dyz9
Personally the layout is good.However my blog doesnt feature whilst surfing my name.LinkedIn and other profiles are shown though.
It lets me preview Hulu videos even though they aren’t available in my country. Thanks Microsoft!
http://www.bing...y&form=QBRE
I love this one!
Bing looks interesting and very promising, It gives perfect results for couple of my favourate searches [aah my name
]
As Michael said – so long I am googler but now Binger
It is fast, accurate, visually pleasing – and as Sam said above – Holly crap, it doesn’t suck. I really like the way the images are done – click on an image in the gallery and then the results go along the left hand side – that is a sweet feature. The news search falls a bit short – but hey.
Definitely an upgrade from live.com.
The results are actually good. i did a search for “extend a dd-wrt network with airport express” and was impressed by the qlty of the results.
also the results look clean.
and the left hand guided search assistant is great..
I actually like it…this is surely a keeper…I think bing can only go up from here.
good results and feels really responsive and fast. WIll use.
The video search is tops.
hmm…. this looks intresting… what i could feel is that Bing will prove to be better than Live.. but it would still just be difficult for them to rope in a lot of google users… may be ppl wil use BIng when they really want to know some thing specific ..
isn’t this the reason why people use search engines…..to find something specific?……I’m just asking
mainly the obvious reason… i already have like 20 people that would love this search engine and will ditch google. I wonder what will TechCrunch will write about now? jejeje… I still love Google and I use it but this is definitely going to give them a kick in the ass. Competition is what we need and we all will benefit from it.
i agree with what you said..i ll just try to put it in better words…. may ppl will go and Bing when they can not find specific results in Google.. I just feel google has a become a habit now, so it might just be difficlut for ppl to type bing.com wen they r looking for some thing…. wen v think search some thing v automatically type google.com!
the page we saw in Taiwan is different from yours.
Not impressed. What’s so fundamentally different about Bing ??
If only those premiums (flight search/video/images) were integrated into one searchbox.
Forget what I said… Bing’s new features don’t work in my country (yet).
Just set the country to U.S. and checking it out now…
if you want videos in your seach results just put “movies” or “videos” behind your search and the vids will show at the top of the results, just hover your mouse over the videos and start previewing, to see the full length of the vid (the time should be at the bottom of the vid) just click it.
all positive responses. Microsoft may have a winner.
I kinda like it….will have to play with it for a week or so..
Wow! Did Microsoft finally nail search? Had to know they would get it right at some point…
who cares?
very disappointing. can’t map 1000 mission,sf,ca (google can).
I can see your fixie parked there too, but only on my MacBook, not on PC.
Yeah unfortunately Bing Maps is still lacking intelligence. It’ll find that address if you actually spell out San Francisco. Also, doing a search for “Giodarno 60605″ in Bing Maps comes up blank, but “Giodarno, 60605″ will get the results people would want.
you are right…..but check this, I clicked one of the links in the location suggestions box on the left then click the “explore collections” option…pretty cool….plus above that open, you can click the “send” button and it gives you options to send email or GPS…..
I have never been so excited about search before, I feel like I can find anything.
thats a lie, I copied your text and paste it in Bing Maps and it came up with “there are more than one match for your location” and shows you the options on the left hand side.
google, shows only 1 location Bing has 5, there is 1000 mission Drive, there’s 1000 mission Court, etc. again, Bing shows 5 results, google only shows 1. which is better? Bing wins here. try again you faild.
The failure is that none of the 5 options given by bing is the one in San Francisco. That’s the one you really want when you type ‘1000 mission,sf,ca’, and Google gives you exactly what you want.
Also quite impressed. Even though there are heavy graphics, it still feels light and responsive. I actually think it makes Google feel a little stale. The front page pictures are gorgeous and I know my mom will find it much friendlier. Plus just ripping off the Google green links gets old.
Congrats Microsoft. Let’s pray for some competition in search so Google gets off its lazy ass and improves search beyond debating 2 vs 3 pixel blue boundaries.
I have. Google gives better results for my last name, but Bing is MUCH better than Microsoft’s efforts in the past and, in other searches, even goes past Google. Google now has serious competition.
Happy with mine http://friendfe...yworthington-to
What I like best about this is that they just launched it. No parade.
Looks suspiciously like the old Live Search. Try clicking on the “videos” button, you will see the old Live Search video result layout, very nice, nevertheless, old.
not true, live search videos had a different layout, you never got “genre” list on the right hand side in live search.
as I was about to post my reply I said let me take a look at live search again, and now it seems they are redirecting traffic to Bing.com
Go to Bing home page, look to the right for these words:
“Live Search is evolving. Welcome to Bing.”
I think they’re being honest about it.
This is the same old girl wearing a new push-up bra. Not that there is anything wrong.
i don’t see “live search is evolving”. but I would guess its like a continuation of the brand and I don’t think they would through away live.com database, they’re pulling and displaying the info differently with bing.
See, a push-up bra doesn’t deform, rather it rectifies what gravity deforms.
So Michael- you said,
“it’s hard to create something that doesn’t fall flat against Google. Too much hype (Google Killer!), whether the company drives it or not, inevitably leads to disappointment.”
Noo.. it isn’t a “google killer”… but I think the comments here atleast indicate we have a challenger- albeit still David vs Goliath.
To be fair, I said that when writing about Blekko, not Bing. Expectations are much higher for Microsoft than a new startup. But I like Bing too. And I hope for the health of the Internet that they take real market share from Google. I fear that they’ll only take market share from Yahoo though. We’ll see.
Parallel search would be good for the health of internet. Like search in the browser should display both goog and bing results, in side by side frames.
It reminds me of Clusty but with more awesome text and image search and unbelievably well-thought-out pages like the airfare comparisons. Seeing Bing almost put a tear in my eye…as well-established as Google is I am sure Bing can kick their butts, and that gets me really excited – I might even change my default search to Bing now, and that would mark the first time I haven’t consistently used G’s search in 3 years (I seriously, seriously dislike Google, but up until seeing Bing, damned if I could stop using their search).
I think they’re going to somehow say something about it at E3, even though the announcement would be “off topic” there.
The search hot sex may return explicit adult content.
To get results, change your search terms.
WTF?
A positive comment from Michael about MS. Who woulda thunk it?!
Looks like the marketing team and the product strategy team had a different understanding of the product…
Tried queries like Western Digital Passport 500 GB, Japanese restaurants in Fremont, CA and the results were similar to what it was giving on live.com.
again, when the put out Bing, they switched over Live.com’s backend to Bing so you’d technically get the same result on both. but now they start redirecting traffic from live.com to bing.com
So, you work for microsoft then?
I see no apparent difference between Bing and Microsoft Live Search. Have they actually integrated Powerset technologies into this? I don’t want to believe it is just a re-branding of Live Search, but it is no competition to Google.
check my reply above. they switched the backend. its not a rebrand, its more like a rebuild with enhancements.
Yup, if you find a small link called “enhanced view” on one of your results, it is a powerset result
Awsome! Video Search Rocks!!
I have a decision tomake this week. I need to get some hardwood flooring for a flat in bristol (that’s Bristol UK). So I searched hardwood flooring bristol best price. The top hit was a supplier in Manchester. The second hit was to the same Manchester website. The third hit was to a supplier in Glasgow with a special offer. Certainly didn’t live up to the pre-hype on this search.
I did that search too and I got good results, however, I’m in the US, so I added UK to the search and got UK results. how about adding some “,” to your search….something like “hardwood flooring, best price, UK”
wow…… bing is good……..surprise coming from Microsoft……………
Bing is good.. Lets have a change, as we are googling for long time.. i started binging .. But i believe that search industry should evolve further.. still they are in keyword based ..
Better search Engine = Microsoft / google + Wolfram + Live databases (including hotel, flight .. etc)
I searched for “with a girl like you” – the famous Troggs song, but it only brought two relevant results in the first five pages (one lyrics site on the second page and an amazon link on the fourth page).
Google has Youtube videos, lyrics, a Wikipedia page, and a last.fm page on the first page of results.
It may be good for some things, but I doubt I will go back.
sure about that?
http://www.bing...2&form=QBLH
he didn’t know what he searched for, lol. he could add “videos” to the search too and get some videos on the top of the results….
Even with quotes (which Google doesn’t need to get proper results), it still only gives you three relevant links on the first page (with no lyrics or videos without another search).
In addition, it also includes a trash link to “Do you really need to lose weight” as the third link with no relevancy to the search at all.
lol, I can argue that the third link does have relevance to the search, in that: it returned a result that says “how to get a girl to like you” this is where the relevance comes in…..loose some weight and you will have a better chance of getting her to like you. lol.
however, I didnt’ see no “do you really want to lose weight” link anywhere on the page,
When I click Nathan’s link, the third link is
Do You Really Need to Lose Weight?
7 questions that can help you decide whether to diet.
http://www.webm...-to-lose-weight
Like I said, it may be better for some things such as plane tickets, but from the few searches I have made, the results have been at best comparable to Google and at worst totally irrelevant. It has to be better than Google for me to switch. If Google is able to get me what I want without extra parameters in less clicks, then I will probably end up sticking with Google. Maybe Bing will get better, or the superior features it touts will become more important to me than they are right now, but until then, I can’t see myself using Bing on a regular basis.
Also, I don’t like the mouseover to preview videos feature. I realize it is not exactly the same as autoplay (and it may seem to contradict my ‘less clicks’ statement), but when it comes to playing sound, I don’t like things to turn on unless I specifically click it. Especially since there seems to be only a mute button with no volume slider (and the volume is on by default).
Uh oh! We’ve got a new BINGster here. Impressive. Well done, MS. Type in your query and, “BING!”, ther ya go. Well done. I’m sure ad clutter will come later, a time after folks have been, um, ?binging? awhile. For now, lookin’ and workin’ pretty sweet.