As Microsoft tries to take away market share from Google with its new search engine, Bing, it is battling Google feature by feature. One feature where Microsoft seems to be edging out Google is with displaying recent search trends. This may not be a major feature, but it shows a weakness in Google’s armor.
On Google, you can create charts showing the popularity of keywords using Google Trends. On Bing, this feature is called xRank. For all but the most popular terms, Google Trends shows a lag of about three days, whereas xRank shows data that is up to date as of today.
For instance, you might want to see how many people are searching for Ricky Barnes, the golfer who came out of nowhere to lead the U.S. Open this weekend. Bing’s xRank shows the spike in interest you’d expect to see over the past two days, whereas Google Trends shows no data whatsoever. The terms “do not have enough search volume to show graphs.”
Or try “Neda,” the name believed to belong to the Iranian woman who died tragically during a protest march in Tehran, and whose dying image and video is spreading around the Web. Bing’s xRank shows the burst in interest today, along with thumbnails of related news videos. It is also a trending topic on Twitter search. Yet the Google Trend graph is three days old. It only goes up to June 18th.
In cases such as these, the fact that Google is not showing the search data from today and yesterday means that it is completely missing the trend.
I am really impressed by the effort Microsoft is putting into Bing
Yes. I cant agree more. I have tried Bing.. its really a good search engine.. But I think many people still are unaware of Bing. Have to spread the word around.
Don’t worry, Microsoft will just make it the default search engine in every Windows application to force most users to use it.
You mean Google is not doing it? See how Google tries to pursue users to use Chrome or its other services. Sometimes I find it more evil than msft, or any other company around. I have moved to Bing, for good.
That’s a laugh. Microsoft is the biggest monopoly enforcer around. Lots of MSFT pumpers on every techcrunch bing post.
I’m a long time Machead (since ‘94 – and I have no love for MSFT), so I’m no “pumper.”
Bing is just better. Simple as that.
And don’t kid yourself about Google not being a monopoly, or acting like it.
From the digital book monopoly to doing everything it can to make sure that it’s the default search on Firefox, Safari, etc.
Basically, everything you can find that isn’t a MSFT product comes with Google as the default search.
“Pot, meet Kettel”
So, with that issue removed from discussion — it’s now just down to who has a better product.
And that’s Bing (for now).
Oh! okay. How can someone download a browser with no browser installed in his OS?
btw, does Apple’s Iphone provide choice for online browsers?
“How can someone download a browser with no browser installed in his OS?” Bingo – right on the nose, Observer.
Don’t know about Microsnot shinternet explioter, and that is my deliberate mis-spelling (my words here) because I don’t like the browser or use it, in Firefox, there is an option to not only change your default search provider but also add new ones.
Microsoft’s new search service at bing.com, I can’t comment on it because I haven’t used it yet, but the page does look nice.
>I can’t comment on it be
Damn. That really is a shame. Who knows what heights of cleverness and insight you might take a search engine review with your 4th grade technique of mispelling names. All of humanity’s loss I suppose.
I hope Bing will get the attention it needs to become and important competitor to Google from the market share perspective.
On the features side, Bing is by far the search engine with the most impressive features. Also the user experience is much nicer than Google’s.
Cheers and Kudos for Microsoft and their Bing.
You must be kidding. I have used Bing to search for images and it has given me the same images for completely different search terms. Also, there are websites that Bing won’t find even if you enter the entire http address.
I welcome competition to Google in search and I think that Microsoft might just be the people to bring that competition.
But other than it’s $80 million advertising budget, Bing is just not that competition.
“Also, there are websites that Bing won’t find even if you enter the entire http address.”
maybe you can give an example…
Bing lags way behind google and Yahoo on relevance. Check out the stats yourself from the latest online poll.
Well, for ‘Neda’, I picked the result that turned out to be ‘Bing’. My so far experience shows 40%/40%/20% for Bing/Google/Yahoo.
Yeah, agreed with you.I’m also thinking the same thing.Perhaps Bing needed more exposure and more try out of it’s features
Bing is a pretty viral name. But I think its ranking algorithm still isn’t as good as Google’s.
At this point they are both boring mega corporations to be hated but used by the masses
.
I’m not really that impressed with Bing, maybe they are working hard to improve. But I will still prefer Google as of now.
There’s always a room for improvement dear. Give BIng a chance. I’m a big fan of Google though.
To over come this… Google should buy Twitter
So google can be a big philanthropist corporation, but if microsoft buys twitter it is because they are an evil empire?
grow up!
I like the new layout, but the searchresults are poor, and that’s an understatement. Microsoft realy needs to understand that in order to get ahead they have to improve the search results..
Too bad no one searches on Bing and thus the trends are almost meaningless.
Too bad you appear to be a Google Employee
LOL!!
So, Google may be “lagging” in releasing trending data, but which is more accurate? Some how I think the company that still retains that majority of the search market might have a better grasp on search trends even if they are a few days old.
You are right assuming the distribution of searches is normal among all search engines. But, I could argue that ‘Neda’ is more accurate on twitter search even if their share is only 0.001% because it is the nature of the search whereas google even with 70% marketshare haven’t figured out what it is. Go figure!
I see your point John, but, it is the very nature of “trends” to look at data over the course of time. Trends in any form doesn’t and shouldn’t apply to real time search. Because “real time” is the present, not past.
there’s a difference between wanting the information now or having to wait 3 days to get it…..the trend is now, not 3 days after right?
This is a little silly. Proves nothing except that Google holds onto trend data for a little while. Do you really think their servers are somehow incapable of processing it in near-real time? That’s absurd.
And, how many more searches and distinct terms are fed into Google? 7 times as much?
Finally, implying this somehow makes Bing “better” is faulty logic at best, and Microsoft boosterism at worst. This feature is little used and cared about only by people who study SEO — and they don’t work in real time. An hours-long trend is not a trend of any lasting significance.
great stuff Erick – Google should be able to fix this soon eh? Wait they’ll have to figure out real time search first
Isn’t competition great!
Yes, but I have a problem with the schonfeld facts. If you think that Ricky Barnes came out of nowhere, then the only fact you have proved is that you are not a golf fan. Shoney, will you ever get it right?
The Google-addicts who look down on any other search engine, and the pseudo-geeks who look down on anything Micro$oft remind me of Firefox fanboys who are now stumped with the arrival of Chrome.
Monopoly is bad for innovation and kudos to Microsoft for trying to up the ante in search. This will only result in Google getting even better!
Mahendra bhai,
I have a PC with 2GB Ram intel E8200 Processor, yet Chrome is as slow as hell.
Firefox does great with me.
Trust me, i will try chrome after V8.
Surprising.. I have 3G RAM, and Chrome is super fast.
It’s been quite some time since Google got some tough competition, Bing is a welcome competitor!
Personally, finding what I need when doing a search is more important than caring about what the world is searching as a whole. But I’m selfish that way…
Google now is looking old and slow. Not to mention having old and boring looks….just too big to innovate.
Welcome Bing!
Just changed my default engine from Google to Bing.
So true! I need a colorful picture on my search page to make me happy.
eye tracking research in HCI make me happy as well!
BADA BING!
Ok. I welcome Bing’s competition and all and consider it to be quite good in its specialized areas, but I cannot agree that Google is “too big too innovate”. Google does a great job at innovation, although their search effort has been stagnant for a bit as they expand to other areas. Generally speaking, Google is still reigning king when it comes to accuracy and volume of results.
Perhaps you don’t realize that Microsoft is as big (bigger?) and through competition has been forced to improve their products and innovate.
xRank has been part of Live/Bing for a long time.
Microsoft will put Google out of business because Google is the puppy-kicker of the internet industry.
this is absurd, I am a Bing fan! But I don’t see Microsoft crushing google! What are they for you? a church? a sect? should they not have competition? are they not competing as well in other api, in other areas, with twitter, with facebook, and many others?
are they the vatican?
corporations should not deserve our loyalty, they are not heavenly institutions.
I can not understand all this cheer leading protectionism for google!
I think it depends. There’s certainly some folks like kasey kahne where Google has data from just a few hours ago: http://www.goog...9-6-21&sa=X and Bing doesn’t have any data: http://www.bing...xrankeverything
I agree. I have seen this with how quickly the two search engines index posts as well. Sometimes Bing does it first, other times Google does it.
Although I am using Bing as my default engine, I find that in a lot of cases, I go back to Google to search again.
hmm, I seem to always find what I want at bing.
Yes, I use Bing because I like pretty pictures on my front page. If I can’t find what I’m looking for I search Bing for Google and enter my query there.
I agree. Also, I really do not see much of a difference between the results generated by either, but where Bing has got Google running is on travel, shopping, local search, and I dare say- Maps!
LOL despite the fact that Bing’s data isn’t as good as Google’s yet, it is really something that Matt Cutts is awake all the day trying to crack Bing down
This means that this article is based on untrue and/or incomplete information. Using only 1 or 2 specific example to compare a search engine feature (indexing billions of terms) isn’t exactly fair, especially when those terms are mostly searched in the US (never heard of this golfer guy nor of Neda in French news) whereas Google has more global data (Bing has mostly been advertised in the US).
Why would Neda, an Iranian, be “mostly searched in the US”? Is interest in the events in Iran mostly limited to the US?
Bing is really moving up, google has a lot to worry about.
Google could release trending data in a more timely manner if they wanted to. As was stated before, the competition from Bing will only improve search.
Also, I think xRank only applies to things like musicians, politicians, and celebrities?
Compare a Bing search for [techcrunch] and you don’t get any search data: http://www.bing...xrankeverything but if you do that search on Google Trends, you get query volume, articles, how many news references happen over time, plus the ability to slice/dice which regions of the world search for TechCrunch: http://www.goog...ll&date=all . There’s also Trends for websites, which lets you find related sites to TechCrunch, which is quite useful: http://trends.g...sort=0&sa=N
Matt – http://www.goog.../hottrends?sa=X does show up both Neda as well as Ricky Barnes. So the data is there. Why doesn’t Google add this data to the main trends?
I believe they just happen to be separate right now. We’ve worked hard to have fresh search, to have accurate trends, and to spot hot trends. But there haven’t been many people asking that the hot trends spotting flow right into the regular trends. In fact, Erick’s article is the first one that I remember to ding us for our trends data and hot trends data needing to be unified. It’s more a question of priorities and resources than whether it’s possible.
But I think Erick could have mentioned that xRank “keeps track of notable people and puts them in order for you.” It only tracks a small number of people. If you wanted to (say) compare queries for swimsuits vs. sweaters by time of the year, you’d be out of luck with Bing. But Google can do that for you: http://www.goog...suits,+sweaters
Matt – thanks for you response. I believe hot trends has suffered from attacks by 4chan in the past so I am sure Google probably wants to make sure that data that goes into hottrends and trends is vetted for spam/manipulation etc.
Exactly. Real-time trends have their own sets of issues.
I see data on the TechCrunch link you say has no data.
When I do the query for [techcrunch] I see Google has trends data and Bing doesn’t, Dan. Do you see something different?
@mattcutts, xRank shows trends for more than just people. I get results for pretty much every keyword I enter, including Techcrunch, http://www.bing...xrankeverything.
But I do wish I could do comparisons. Google Trends wins in that department.
what about Google Insights for Search? I can do a comparison of the top 5 telecom companies in Canada and it will tell me what the search volume is per region which mirrors market share. Can Bing do that? – LOL.
I personally think Bing is a short lived hype, as people are anxious to what the name change from Live to Bing has to offer. Bing may be ahead in search trends, but does anyone care?
I care.
Apparently +3% of the search market share started to care in the last 2 weeks.
Anyone who is tired of this high-nosed Google attitude cares.
All advertisers who want a better way than Google’s black box system care.
Anyone who loves innovation in search – and not a Google monopoly – cares.
Yes, all Microsoft employees and stockholders care and are out pumping Bing bigtime.
… i agree with Richeal, … this is 3rd time Microsoft came with another search engine, who had failed miserably in the past with their previous attempts, … i think in a just few days Bing undeserved hype will be gone, … it’s just came into people’s attention with it’s unusual name and since it’s a Microsoft service, people do take notice, … but it’s just a matter of days people will be back to Google, which is downright the better and more useful search engine, and it doesn’t need this label of “decision engine”, … @Zhou … talking about monopolies and attitude, … there’s no company in the world who is more monopolistic than Microsoft and everybody knows that!
Third time – ‘try and try until you succeed’ ?? ?? ??
Competitors don’t stand still.
I don’t know. It seems to me that Bing actually has some mojo (differently from Live and all previous Microsoft attempts).
People are starting to realize that there isn’t that much of a difference in relevance between Google and Bing – and this can change perception over time. Google for the first time looks “beatable” – and people like to cheer for the underdog.
Besides, Bing has a nicer interface, and some of the verticals, such as travel, are significantly better than Google.
Also don’t forget that Microsoft has a culture of trying many times, coming from behind, and taking over market share and lead. Just look at the XBox example.
I personally tried Bing for a while, and I liked it. I do 80% of my search in Bing now.
Google could buy and integrate Twitter
Okay, last one. Most people don’t care about how fast search trends are shown, they care about search and how fresh that is. If you want to see results from within (say) just the last 24 hours, do a Google search like [ricky barnes]. Above the search results there’s a link labelled “Show options…” click on that to see a whole bunch of ways to slice and dice your search. You can click to see search results from just the last 24 hours, for example: http://www.goog...qdr:d&tbo=1 which is pretty handy. I don’t think Bing has advanced search options to restrict results based on freshness.
http://www.bing...?q=ricky+barnes{[NewsVertical+SortByDate%3d"1"]}&qpvt=ricky+barnes&p1=[NewsVertical+SortByDate%3d"1"]&FORM=YGNR
Dan, I believe that url is for a news search? I don’t think Bing gives options to restrict by date over the web search?
But since you bring up news, let’s compare. I see ~150 news results on Bing for the exact search ["ricky barnes"]. On Google, I see over 6000, even if I restrict to the past day. When I sort by most-recent on Bing, the freshest result is from 14 minutes ago. On Google, the freshest result was from about 4 minutes ago, and that held when refreshing both pages quite a bit.
That means that for the search Erick picked out, Google News tends to go deeper and be fresher than Bing News, at least for this example query. Picking the query [iran] because it should have lots of news, Bing’s freshest article is 24 minutes old. Google’s is 3 minutes old.
I tend to think that users may not notice differences in depth, freshness, or relevance at a conscious level, but we saw when pushing out new indices at Google that users would search more when the results were fresher. So even little things can make a big difference over time.
I see what you mean, it’s not the same. Google definitely has the power advantage in terms of crawling.
Actually, this is one thing I have been meaning to ask someone, and since it came up – here goes…
I have noticed that Bing has less number of results by orders of magnitude for most queries as compared to Google. Now the questions is – is there index tiny compared to Google’s.
Also, does it matter what the index size is? Suppose that the first 10 pages in Google and Bing for a given term intersect at 80-90 percent – does it matter then who has more pages?
Vaibhav, results estimates are just that: estimates. One good way to compare comprehensiveness is to pick a rare word (well under a thousand results) and then actually click to the last page so that you can count the actual results. Some search engines filter out dupes, so you have to account for that. With Google, &filter=0 lets you see the dupes too.
If you want to read more, http://www.sear...thodology.shtml is a good place to start.
Thanks Matt – off the read that article – though you don’t need to reply to this one, but I have also often wondered, why do we need pagination at the bottom of the page….
Since search engines by definition sort the results by relevance, I wouldn’t move to page 3 before looking at page 2, so just a next button should suffice.
How did this become about Google News?
Very good post Eric. Keep up the good work.
http://www.goog.../hottrends?sa=X does show up both Neda as well as Ricky Barnes. So the data is there – not sure why Google doesn’t stitch it together and show it in the main trends.
IS Microsoft put some substance in search engine tech?
http://www.youtechno.info
it might be because the “lead users” are more likely to experiment on bing, whereas google is being used as a bread and butter search tool.
therefore bing is more more sensitive to trends, because of the way it is being used.
ohhhh shit… game on.
(too bad Bing uses the Google Adwords API for their rev model** : P )
I give it another 3 months before it craps out.
What? It does?
I assumed it was Microsoft AdCenter ads as always.
Dan – you are correct, Bing uses AdCenter, as always.
I still like GOOGLE.
Better to have lagging data than to use data extracted out of small search volume that MS gets.
I like both google and bing. They are awesome. It would be great combination if they are unified.
that very iterseting i think year of hard work of microsoft now working that great reward for there effort,now it turn for google.
Which search engine has a picture of cute lions on the front page? BING!
I choose the one with the cute pictures. Good work Microsoft, you finally figured out what the users are looking for.
lol!
Has Bing solved the problem of porn not filtering on their video search result previews? This is a big issue as I have young children at home and won’t use Bing until they can get this fixed.
They have. It was only a one day lapse.
I’ve switched over to Bing as my default search engine, not because its better, but I’m sick of the draconian ways in which Google functions, especially its advertising arm
Very smart Puranjay. Switching to Microsoft products to avoid a draconian company makes a lot of sense.
Change is the only constant in life.
This is the wake-up call for Google.
Change or get beaten to death by Microsoft and all the new real-time searches.
Bing is Microsoft’s 5th attempt to respond to the wakeup call Google gave it over 10 years ago.
Microsoft is a desktop software company, a web search engine 10 years ago was not a wake up call, it wasn’t even their industry.
Bing only exists to deprive Google of ad revenue so that it can’t use search to fund competing in the office software space, not because Microsoft has a real interest in the web or ad revenue.
Yeah, I’ve often wondered whether its more important to MSFT to have a profitable search engine or one that cuts Google’s profitability.
That’s a really interesting comment, Dan. By that logic, Microsoft would be willing to do bad things for the net (and therefore bad for Microsoft’s competitors) because then Microsoft could preserve its power on the desktop.
If Microsoft execs could turn back the clock to the 90s and keep the internet from taking off (e.g. preserving their OS/desktop dominance by decimating or destroying the growth of the net), do you think that they would do it?
Of course they would. At the same time Google would be happy to keep the world as it is now and be the sole provider of search-directed ad revenue. Companies exist to make money, period. They’re certainly not going to go out of their way to lose money.
With that said neither Google nor Microsoft can stop technology from moving forward. Every indication I have is that MS gets this as much as anyone else and is honestly trying to out innovate to gain marketshare (and hence revenue to profit). Google is doing the same. We all win when there is competition in the search space.
As someone who has used Google advertising, I invite a popular search competitor. I certainly had my problems with Google and their customer service. I would have loved to have been able to call them and say that I’m switching to MS. I recently did something similar with my phone company and they were jumping over themselves to help me out. Google’s attititude was, “Where are you going to go? Yahoo? Live? Ask? Suck it up, we’re the only game in town”.
I agree with Ken.
Google has a terrible customer service, and acts like it owns the market. If Google could, they’d love to keep this monopolistic market share and power they have, along with the their traditional cocky attitude.
Competition is welcome for them, particularly with it has comparable – if not better – results.
Btw, Bing seems to provide a much better search experience than Google in most of my queries.
Now, now, Matt.
The politician’s technique of “asking a question” or describing “the logical next step” as a way of sounding like you are neutral when, in fact, you’re really creating FUD is really beneath you.
Microsoft and Google are pretty much the same, I’m sorry to inform you. Each one has a large revenue base that it is beholden to shareholders to protect. For Google, that revenue base is advertising, for Microsoft, that revenue base is client software licenses. Neither company is Good, nor is it Evil. It simply is.
On Microsoft’s side, however, it has realized, slowly, that there are many good businesses to be in — in fact, one of Microsoft’s core beliefs is that if a business is powered by software, then Microsoft can be add value (and therefore, make some money) to that business (Advertising, Search, Games, Music, Phones, whatever). One of those business happens to be Google’s sole revenue stream of any importance. If Microsoft starts to make serious in-roads, it’ll be interesting to watch the contortions that Google starts to go through to defend its revenue.
Google, on its side, sees revenue growth opportunities in Microsoft’s traditional businesses, and is building tools deliberately designed to disintermediate Microsoft — not, of the benefit of the net, for the benefit of Google.
Did Google go and contribute to Firefox “for the benefit of the net”? No, it built its own browser that it can control for the benefit of Google.
Did Google go and contribute to Mobile Linux ventures “for the benefit of the net”? No, it acquired and distributed it’s own Mobile OS for the benefit of Google.
How about making wikipedia better? Nope, let’s create Knol so we can sell ads against it.
Oops, here’s come Facebook threatening our ability to sell ads against social software. Let’s disintermediate them with OpenSocial.
Google is happy to tout the “benefit of the net” when it’s trying to commoditize or neutralize a competitor, but when it comes to its own core business, it quietly looks the other way.
Again, it’s not evil (it is, however, hypocritical), it’s just a company doing what companies do.
BING …!!! this is my favorite and so sending it again…
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).
Just an FYI, it’s not supported in Thailand, it says: Sorry, xRank™ is not supported in your location.
It appears that Xrank is not supported in Australia either I see the same thing
xRank™
No xRank™ results were found for techcrunch
Bing is now my default “decision” engine in…..
wait for it….
…..Chrome.
damn near perfect combo.
why not to try http://www.SearchWithLove.com engine, which includes more than 30 search engines??
A trend is a trend it cannot be confused with a spike. Anyway some good competition always improves products and services
Too bad Bing’s logo is hideous. I can’t stand to look at it. I wish they would fix the fact that it is horizontally stretched, it would make the site so much more enjoyable.
Bing is quite good… but one area it lags behind google on is spelling. Google comes with accurate alternatives and the first 2 results are for for what they think are the right results. Bing is lacking here. Try schumacher or schumecher for example…
Bing will never catch on though unless it offers ‘way more value’ than Google. Do you see that happening? I don’t
Was looking for a local dealer to install a trailer hitch the other day. I Bing-ed ‘drawtight’ (correct spelling is ‘draw-tite’). Bing’s 1st result was not only the correct site, but it had a link to their dealer locator page. Pretty damn good if you ask me.
http://www.bing...amp;Form=IE8SRC
Bings index is outdated. It does not index anywhere near as much as Google therefore is inferior.
Cuil has the best indexing system, therefore Cuil is superior to all search engines.
Right?
according to whom ?
Btw, amid all this fanboyism, does anybody here realize that it took a company with shit loads of cash in its coffers to come up with a viable solution to Google.
So does this mean that search, just like telecom or television, has become just way too expensive for smaller players to innovate in? MS could do it because they have the money to buy billions of dollars worth of servers. Would a smaller player with $1m in investment be able to pull something like this off?
Honestly, its sad for the internet – its no longer a truly “democratic” medium where an upstart with little cash could upstage the big boys. At least in the search field.
Do you know the capital costs to do search today? MS and Google have HUGE datacenters (think football field size) — and note the plural on datacenters. Searching the web is no longer something you can do on a single powerful computer (remember AltaVista had a single DEC Alpha SMP powering it!!).
A small company can show some great insights, like WolframAlpha or Powerset. Effectively a niche, but to compete with Google you need tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. The simple acts of crawling, storing, and serving out the index is expensive. And then of course we haven’t even gotten into the cost of developing an actual superior search solution.
Excellent insights, yes it takes deep pockets, and infrastructure for search, so except for niche areas it really is the bastion now of deep pocketed companies, or maybe governments, what with everything being taken over by them.
try looking for the word “iran” , bing will show no results in xrank!
you will find that you will get no results for any Xrank search in your country (Australia and Thailand are the same)
wahoo amazing
bing video search is amazing….searching on the movie gives all parts of the movie uploaded to youtube in one page, no need to visit youtube, play right there on bing
it doesn’t matter which one is the best as long it provides quality search results certainly with closest keyword phrase that we’ve looking for.
this is a internet user advantage if there is new search engines launched. they’re going to make an effort for better results and claims as best search engines in this planet.
go for bing and google!
Bing will take years to overcome google
And what about Google Insights for Search ?
http://www.goog...012m&cmpt=q
Looks up to date…
From Sweden, Neda shows no results at all on Bing.
Bing has been default since early June, and so far meets my needs quite well. I am glad to see competition.
It is Bing for me.
—Sheriff Bing – Bing – Bing
This is onlyt the temporary result of… 200 millions of $ for launch!
Can you imagine how much money it is, just to promote a search engine???
Erick, any information on how Wolframalpha is doing ever since it launched?
bing is really a good search engine and after the launch of bing i am only using bing stopped using google
Functionality aside, has no-one noticed that Bing looks almost identical to Google? Microsoft aren’t really doing anything new here, they’re simply demonstrating their size and influence. It’s a shame that Microsoft haven’t taken this opportunity to really re-invent search… I think they could have done a good job!
And isn’t it interesting that Google looks a lot like AltaVista did 10 years ago? With all of the work in search, the look of it is pretty much the same. ~10 weblinks with some summary text. Ask is the only company that did anything somewhat different on this front (their 3D work), but clearly wasn’t popular enough.
Its funny how Ask is a miserable marketing campaign. You can ask any question, but its well known to give you the wrong answer, zing! How do you like them apples Ask?
You may have noticed what Bing has done for Shopping and travel? I really don’t see Google doing any of that.