A hundred million mistakes: Microsoft's Bing search engine

Great points mark, couldn't agree more that users respond to their experience, not the advertising.

I will say that in one area M$ is making what appears to be enormous headway: Project Natal for the xbox. If you haven't seen it yet, GO NOW and look for it on youtube. It has the potential to completely shakeup the entire console gaming market.

Thanks, BJ... and that's a perfect example of a good experience getting spread online... you're talking about Project Natal because you genuinely think it's good, not because it has a clever ad campaign or because some talk-show host said "Natal" in a funny voice.

The worst part is that while Bing is an improvement over Live Search, Google still has the better experience.

I've been using Bing as my primary search engine for two days, and I'm switching back to Google today. Why?

I was looking for a satellite photo of Laughing Planet Cafe on N Mississippi Ave in Portland, Oregon.

A Google search for "laughing planet portland" shows me local results WITH THE ADDRESS of each location. (There are several Laughing Planets in Portland.)

A Bing search for "laughing planet portland" gives me a map with more Laughing Planet locations than Google, but with NO ADDRESSES listed! I have no idea which of the five Laughing Planet listings is the one I need to click on for a full-size map.

Google saved me time and a click-through. Bing hasn't saved me any time in two days of full time searching. Back to Google I go.

Seriously, Microsoft should just invest in startups instead of doing it themselves. Well, they still think they can get innovation from cheap labors in China and India. Good luck to them.

Actually, due to funny/memorable commercials, I found a great search engine: ask.com. When comparing similar searches between ask and Google, ask seems to bring what I am looking for to the top of its list better than Google.

Because of my satisfaction with ask (and using Google for some searches, particularly map-related like Aaron), I have no desire to try Bing.

Another pseudo-search engine that looks promising with an interesting customer experience is Wolfram|Alpha. Maybe not good on finding a good pizza, but gave me some good info on Liberia.

And let's not even go anywhere close to the issue of the NAMING of this search engine. Ted Dewan *(Euro Gel speaker) has a rather cool retro bunny book series entitled BING... they clearly didn't do their homework on naming or figured that, as the bully in the market, they could just get their way on trademark issues? http://www.wormworks.com/bingbunny/featurepage/origins.htm

Good point, Heather - and speaking of Ted's euroGel talk, it's well worth watching - available here in its entirety:
http://gelconference.com/videos/euro06/ted_dewan/

(I really like the Bing Bunny books, too - recommended them in the current Uncle Mark guide: http://unclemark.org/unclemark2009.pdf )

I don't know, Mark. If you assume that MSFT thinks it has a good product - even one that might, in their estimation, deliver a better experience than Google (gasp!), what's so wrong with spending marketing dollars to build awareness and get people to try it? Not everyone is in the tech space and knows the second a new major product is launched. And MSFT certainly NEEDS mass adoption to succeed with Bing. You are right, of course, that the goal of the product design and development itself should be a better experience overall. But having accomplished that (or so you think) is there a problem with being in a hurry to get people to try it? Or am I missing your point?

Well, if you read the NYT piece you see the MSFT exec saying "our goal is to engage people through advertising" ... which is to say, as opposed to "we built this new great experience that does XYZ which is better than anything out there." So their promised strategy is simply to heavily (traditionally) advertise and promote an also-ran experience.

And then if you go to the site itself, you'll see that - except for a shiny photo on the home page - it looks and feels and acts just like Google search. So my conclusion is that the executive executed exactly what he promised: a knockoff product with lots of money on the ad side.

Contrast this approach to everything ELSE that Microsoft could do with $100 million - see my bulleted suggestions - things that almost certainly would drive much higher ROI, not to mention helping people and the industry at large at a time when it needs strong investment in innovation!

Another thought-provoking post Mark. Speaking of UX, where's the TweetMeme/Digg buttons on your blog? Or even a basic ShareThis button? You're just giving a cold shoulder to all of us who want to spread your work!

Don't forget MS's complementary strategy of forcing new products into usage by just slipping them in their monopolistic tools without users' permission. Oh right, they just fixed this "bug" the other day....
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/02/oops-bing-is-now-your-default-search-engine-on-ie6-whether-you-like-it-or-not/

Nice one!

Lest we through the baby out with the bath water, Bing does have some good features (such as the rollover expanded results pop-up and related search suggestions) that I find useful.

And now Google quietly launches Google Squared (http://www.google.com/squared) that takes a 2-dimensional approach to present results in a square or table where the user can adjust the rows and columns. Not for all searches but works well for comparison-type queries.

I don't think that one can settle for one search engine and expect it to work well in all situations. I really like enterprise search products (e.g. Endeca) that help the user progressively refine their search criteria.

Umm, dare I say that bing is not really that bad a product? And I say that as an well-practiced Microsoft basher.

So far, I've found it to be pretty fast, provide useful sorting and in some cases cleaner results than Google Search. Yes, the design is pretty lame, but it is a respectable effort.

Just because the marketing department says it's going to compete on advertising doesn't mean that the product people development aren't doing their best to make it work. I've found their image search results, for example, to be pretty solid so far. Sure, it remains to be seen whether they can continue to deliver and sustain relevant results as the Internet gets more bigger, but I suspect there's been a lot more than $100 million spent on product development for this so far.

I agree with your suggestions as to how MSFT should spend their pot 'o gold, but I think they absolutely _had_ to do this, and that they came up with a surprising on-point product.

I actually liked the Crispin created PC spots talking about price. They connected and were a breath of fresh air. But the new Bing stuff, creatively, is all over the place. (There may be an idea buried in there somewhere, but the overproduction kills it. Kinda like bad software.) As for Bing itself, it doesn't find my blog when I search so buh-bye. That's the ultimate experience.

Mark - Apple (hugely) advertises the iPod, iMac and iPhone, yet I don't see it negating the user experience with those products.

Heather - Microsoft actually owns the trademark for "BING" in the industry its in - http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4007:2hnevk.3.45

Multiple companies can have trademarks on the same word or name as long as they are not in the same industry. So since the "BING Bunny" books clearly do not compete with the Bing search engine, it's not an issue.

I don't want a "search" engine anymore. I want an "acquire" engine. The stuff I'm looking for is the stuff I need to use, and often to own, at least for a little while. Facts for an article. Images for a presentation. Materials for a product. People with skills.

The "acquire" engine is somehow more personal than the search engine. Intimate? Yes, it's familiar with me and what I do. Maybe prescient. Based on my history it correctly interprets what I might need or identifies problems that may come up and suggests options.

It's not my Mom. It's an "engine" I build awareness with over time. Is that out there somewhere? Is it available for under 100 million bucks?

I agree with your comments. The visual search engine is something I've been waiting for for a long time. I've really like a new visual search engine for shopping called www.like.com, by a company (Riya) that uses facial recognition technology. Then I saw huge billboards (in Silicon Valley) for SearchMe. I thought, oh cool, another one that hopefully has more breadth than just shopping-- that one is aweful.

Then I thought, Oh, MS will get this right.... wrong.

It's sad actually.

I imagined what you wrote as coming from Andy Rooney from 60 minutes. I love his little commentary at the end of the shows. Yours reminded me of him ... I liked it!

Brilliantly said.

MSFT is so busy still running its old mantra of embrace, enhance, extinguish in attempts to be a good company that the majority of the time it is completely missing other opportunities that would make it a "great" company.

Great ideas for a better use of cash than attempting to market a premature product to an already dominated niche.

I think there are a lot of improvements that could be made to search.

Isn't Google's algorithm still based on ranking sites by how many other sites have linked to it?

Back when the web was much smaller that made sense; but that metric doesn't necessarily produce more relevant results today.

Have you even tried Bing?

I found that it was actually quite good. And their travel vertical is pretty ingenious.

Others must think so too, since it overtook Yahoo: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/05/did-bing-just-leapfrog-yahoo-search/

I think it's so easy to make Microsoft a target without trying the product itself. Don't chastise Microsoft because they actually have money to market their product.

Mark, I think this is an oversimplified view. I'm sure Microsoft's strategy to compete in the search space is multi-pronged.

On the product front, the first priority was to improve the product to a point where Bing at the very worse is a "viable" alternative search engine to Google with maybe 80% parity. And the best case scenario is that Bing actually can outperform Google is certain scenarios.

I certainly think Bing has achieved this goal, and if you still don't think Bing offers a "good experience", you are disagreeing with I dare say half of the population talking about Bing on Twitter.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=bing

Now, advertising does have to play a part too, like it or not, considering the entrenched position the incumbent is in.

And frankly, if you really want to shift the needle, you need to engage the general public, which is a very different creature from the Internet Intelligentsia. These people may not scour for tech savvy gurus' opinions on blogs and stuff to decide what search engine to use. These people watch TV and listen to their friends.

I mean, didn't Apple reinvigorate its Mac business against an entrenched incumbent by successfully combining a great product with tons and tons of advertising (a lot more than the $100 million MS is putting in for Bing)?

I can foresee a similar success for Bing.

Jonathan - My point isn't to bash MS but to challenge them to invest in a BETTER project. Simply creating something that's 80% of what the world already has, is not particularly innovative - by definition - or that interesting or that helpful. I see you attended the recent unConference - http://www.e27.sg/unconference/2009/start-ups/ - wouldn't you have preferred for Microsoft to fund each of those 32 startups with a million dollars? Eminently doable if they had just opted for a strategy to harness NEW ideas & creativity, rather than trying to steal market share, yet again, in a space they've failed in several time salr.

jro - Yes, Apple spends beaucoup on advertising their products. I think that's a great idea... because FIRST they built something great and new and innovative, and THEN they told the world about it. Very different from someone copying someone else and spending all their resources trying to tear down the innovator.

Thanks to all other commenters, too!

I agree with much of what you're saying - I was a big critic of their Mohave ads that NEVER showed one screen yet tried to convince us of what a great experience Vista was (!). But I wouldn't cling so much to one statement made by a marketing guy re: ads. A few notes:
-There is too much $ on the table for MS to walk away from search. And, Google doesn't have to have the whole pie
-Bing does some things that Google doesn't - at least for now - including categorized listings for retail shopping searches
-There are a whole lot of people out there who like MS (believe it or not) and will welcome new messages from them
-That said, if I were in the room I would have suggested a "soft" launch to the tech community first, borrowing from Google's playbook. See if WOM radiates out of NY, Boston, Seattle and No Cal. Then do the consumer campaign. MS will do better when they learn to trust the customer. Otherwise they will end up looking like GM.

Mark, with respect...

MSFT has more than enough cash to fund $100M on marketing Bing AND do all the things you mention (worthy ideas, to be sure) AND probably a good basket of other projects good and bad. One has nothing to do with the other. You can criticize them for not fostering innovation or even for taking a "safe" route of non-invention (if competing with Google can be said to be "safe"), but I just don't see this as an issue with Bing or its marketing. The NYT piece is *about* the Bing ad campaign, so the quote is understandable. I just don't buy your implied assertion that MSFT knows they have a knock-off product and they are trying to make up for it with advertising.

And then there is the fact that Bing apparently doesn't suck that bad... Maybe not a consensus view, but certainly a theme in some of the discussions of Bing so far...

If they pay everyone who uses bing something like 0.10 per search, they would had gather a larger audience than spending in advertising.

If Bing was really good, a percentage of everyone who just went there to get some buck would return.

and everybody but google would be happy...

This post hit the nail on the head. Thanks.

I agree with Nick. MS does it all.

Bing is better in some ways.

There are different problems in business. One problem is just getting ahead of your competition, not necessarily renovating the space--just being better.

Google has the mind share. You hear "google it" everywhere. There's a kids' song that sings "that's what Google's for." Microsoft HAS TO spend a lot in advertising to get the word out about their search. Saying they're using ads to engage people means just that--they want the people to engage with Bing, to connect enough to go give it a try.. it doesn't mean they don't think their product is actually engaging. I think you read too much into that exec's statement and are, dare I say, buying into Apple's advertising about MS covering up problems with ads.

Finally, Microsoft has and is investing in startups. Check out their BizSpark initiative. Lots of free software to help startups. Not quite the same as your proposal, but it illustrates they're doing a lot.

These are not either-or propositions; they can afford to spend on research (MS is one of the last few companies that has real, pure research going on), product development, and business development (including marketing).

This post seems more to come from a deep-seated prejudice against Microsoft than reality. It's okay--we all have prejudices..

Regarding

This all sounds horribly familiar. Remember when Microsoft launched x-box and we all laughed that they thought they could dethrone both Nintendo and Sony by throwing money at the problem? Money talks, x-box is now a totally respected console brand.

Mark, while I agree with the broad points of your post, I think you're perhaps over-reacting a bit on this one. As a few previous posters have noted, there are ways in which the Bing experience is better than Google's. Travel is the perfect example, with a lot of display of relevant information that isn't an exact keyword match but is useful, fare price trending data, etc. In that case, it goes a few steps beyond what Google currently does.

In other areas, there's not much difference. Some types of search, there's just not a lot different to do.

So, if you are a competitor to Google, and you have what you believe is a product that does things better, what else are you going to do but advertise it? And given how habituated so much of the user population is to Google, you're going to have to overcome a good amount of inertia, which means a lot of marketing effort. I'm not sure advertising is the best thing to throw all of that into, but it does need to be a component.

I suspect that MSFT's actual rollout strategy is more complex than what someone told the NYT. Surely you're savvy enough to know that those sorts of quotes are canned and designed to say as little as possible while appearing to say something. Trying to read an actual strategy from a press quote is usually an exercise in futility.

I give MSFT credit (there are four words I haven't strung together in eons) for moving some things forward on search. Will it, combined with a marketing push, be enough to make a dent in Google's domination of the market? It's too early to tell. The determining factor in this is not really going to be Microsoft; it's going to be Google. Other people have innovated, and Google has taken those ideas and improved upon them. I'd expect to see some of the improvements Bing has to show up on Google result pages in a couple months, if not sooner. That's a key part of maintaining good experience: not being afraid of the fact that sometimes other people will come up with better ideas than you, and adopting those ideas to your own needs. Google's got a pretty good track record on that front. And that's the real reason why a $100 million marketing push may not end up having any lasting effect.

"...any online strategy built on emotional connection, based on flashy ads or a new font or color scheme on the website, is guaranteed to fail."

So why, then, does Apple rely heavily on all these things? And when Apple has a better product than someone, they are proud to advertise about it. So why shouldn't Microsoft?

"...if one site already provides a good experience, then there's no need to consider switching to some other site, no matter what the company brags about itself in its ads."

Part of Microsoft's push with Bing is to make people realize that search can be so much more. People think they're satisfied, but research has shown that people's success with web searches isn't actually that great and the end up clicking the back button more than anything else. Most people hope Microsoft keeps pushing into search, because I'm with those who say that a near-monopoly by Google isn't ideal.

Also, if you think your alternative investments for Microsoft would potentially have a higher ROI than search, that's vaguely ridiculous. All of Google's revenue is search! Taking even a small percentage of that away from them is hundreds of millions of dollars. You'd be hard-pressed to find ANYTHING with more revenue potential than gaining search share.

Mark, you begin to make a valid point but then ruin it in the second comment :P

I cant really trust your intuition in calling the Bing ad campaign marketing hype etc. when you then praise Natal.

Because Natal IS pure hype and marketing - used to draw attention to the Xbox at the E3 :) It doesnt *actually* work yet (at least not on the Xbox alone) and indeed it's hinted that it is nowhere near ready.

Green posturing? Yeah, that's a great idea.

So Google generated 3.5MW of power yesterday with solar panels. Well, that's great - in Mountain View.

I think you'll find it's a lot cloudier in Redmond.

And further that the amortized cost/MWH is higher for solar than not, and the "green" factor is greatly overstated (especially in the Northwest, where so much power is hydro anyway).

But if we're only talking about posturing and marketing, I suppose it's not utterly nonsensical.

hmmmmmmm if MS followed what you said they wouldn't make Xbox & Xbox 360 as the console market was already divided between Sony & Nintendo (ok, and Sega).

It's funny that you compare Microsoft's approach to that for "a new blockbuster movie". I've noticed lately that a lot of movies try to compensate for their lameness with advertising, and for me it backfires. When I see a movie being overpromoted, I make a mental note to avoid it.

according with statcounter they surpass yahoo yestarday, if that true and it keeps that way those 100 million dollars are going to pay for themselves

Mark, you didn't say anything about the Bing user experience...which is what i expected from the first half of your thesis. shame...cuz if you really are the expert you claim, i would have liked to see your review. your comments go no further than the front page of bing.com; is that the basis of your judgment that Bing is a copycat? how about trying some queries?

btw...your comment form has crappy UX. doesn't indicate required fields, then error page offers a link only to original entry without saving the previously-typed content in the form.

Mark - Your main argument is that Bing is "a knockoff" of Google, just a copy, and now MS is spending $100 million to market it.

http://waggenered.wmod.llnwd.net/a2412/o23/kumo/MS_SearchLaunch_ProductVideo_Final_500K.wmv

You may want to take a look at some of its features first, before assuming Bing is simply a knockoff of Google, because it isn't. It has a number of features that Google doesn't.

Loved the approach, your so right, this M$ thing is going nowhere, no coherance in the company. They just did a whole 'we are going to LIVE' as a uniform single location for your profile, socialising and all the related info including search results. Now they go buy a TLDN for how much and feel they have to put a new site/system in there??? If you have new search tech then apply it to live, make a site and stick to it. If you have to spend money, ur so right, go forth and forge new ventures. If you become just the also-ran, the number 2, then eventually the dominant one will consume you, google, go forth and eat microsoft. Your assignment Google, should you choose to accept it is to eliminate the 20th centure tech companies that have to many bucks left to die naturally...

"Mark... I think you're perhaps over-reacting a bit on this one."

Steve, I think you may be right. I don't remember Mark reading "effing" on this blog before ;-)

I don't see why MSFT cannot compete with Google just because "Google Search is much better", following the same scheme we would drive only Toyota or use only Apple laptops, etc, etc. Because there is "one" that is the "best" we don’t need anything else?... It is me or are we getting back to Communism? Thanks God there is still competition.

Our society is utterly saturated with advertising. You cannot even go to a bus terminal toilet without seeing ads all over the damn door.

Online it's bad and getting worse. But at least one have some degree of control via the software.

But the worst must be television. On each hour 25 min is devoted to ads. Each ad last about 15 sec, so that one is subjected to watching 100 ads per hour. Then we have 50% of the ad rendered in fast graphics just like those Hollywood movie trailers. Maximum graphics to induce maximum pressure on the watcher to buy. The whole TV ad experience is now a nightmare to be avoided at all cost.

Into this ad society gone insane Microsoft wants to base its search engine success. Here's my advise to MS:
1) Take the $100m in dollar bill, call a press conference, and burn it. At least some people will enjoy the show.
2) Or take the $100m and apply it as a discount to Windows 7 Christmas release. Give everybody a Christmas gift. It just might buy some goodwill.

I am a hardcore Google fan. I use their Search, GMail, Google Apps, Chrome, can't wait for Wave, etc. I am not a fan of much that MS has offered as a pure internet play to date. Still, it is plain to me that you are missing the point! First off, Google itself started out as a knockoff of Yahoo, Lycos, Altavista, etc. Innovation works that way most of the time, dude. I have been comparing Bing and Google side by side for the last few days and find strengths and weaknesses to both. Heck, I still use Yahoo and AltaVista for some types of searches. Point is, we (the consumers) need real competition in the marketplace whether it comes from an unknown upstart or a turn in direction from a behemoth like Microsoft. If you take the time to look at what Bing is trying to offer besides just plain old search you might change your tune. BTW, 90%+ of "those effing customers" still choose Windows, so it is clear MS has been doing something right all these years. Maybe they are going to try to do things better on the internet, and more power to them - it will only make for a more competitive and rich experience for us all.

The verdict on Bing is out in less than a week? If you had credibility with me before, that's were you lost it. I'm sure Google wasn't too hot a week after RTW.

i agree with you at all the points,
They arent working that great as they should first vista and now this bing,
i always prefer google and will, an now i an thinking to try ask as above mentioned in a comment.

I would've bothered with the rest of the article but somewhere in the beginning itself you mentioned that the I'm A PC ads/campaign didn't work, which you should look up on the internet ... it actually worked ;)

And that leads me to believe that this article is more of your opinion on Microsoft (that too a biased one) rather than based on what is real.

Reading the comments on your blog & the $ instead of S confirms my belief that your blog attracts the anti-MS crowd, when the rest of the tech world actually has been pointing out that Bing is off to a good start :)

Great post and dead accurate as to what Microsoft should be doing.

As to trying to compete with Google. It is going to be difficult for anyone to grab any of Google's users. Google has branded the name Google to convey the word search. People don't say I am going to search for a topic, they say I am going to Google. For me personally it is second nature to just go to Google when I need to find anything.

I love that Microsoft's arrogance has finally caught up with them. As for Ballmer, he should be fired and replaced with someone who has a clue what needs to be done to turn the company around. I wish they could have come to terms with Yahoo and purchased Yahoo only to see the purchase ruin Ballmer.

Great article, Mark, and 100% correct.
Microsoft suffers from the "I cut it 3 times and it's still too short!" syndrome. The day they make a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner. I mean really, they just don't get it.

Mike

i found a great article written by some naming/branding experts on the curiously named "bing." well worth a read: http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/naming_bing/

Bing isn't very good yet, but they are getting better. Remember the 3rd time rule, which seems to apply to all microsoft products? This is just the 2nd iteration of msn search, so they have one more round to go before they choke the air out of the Google juggernauts' lungs.

OK, so that was hopeful thinking. But seriously, it's good that they keep trying. IMHO they should invest a $100 every month in 50 startups, this will jumpstart a whole industry within 12 months for the grand total cost of $1.2 billion. Heck they lose or gain that much in one day on the stock market, why the heck NOT.

Rick W's point is correct.
[Bing is not really lame.]
Mark's pro-Cupertino bent is slightly deeper than his analysis.
Also, does read:
"I have to imagine this is tough on Ballmer and whoever else over
there. "
Should READ: "...whomever..."
[Same rule as 'for he and I..."]

good points. photosynth (http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html) looks very impressive, though.

A very interesting post. What with Linux starting to eat the desktop OS market, OpenOffice chewing at Microsoft Office and Google dominating the search engines, what's poor little Microsoft to do?

Maybe fast-food is the answer?

You don't buy a hamburger, you buy a licence to enjoy the hamburger experience :)

Microsoft needs to join the 21st century. Business doesn't work the way they're used to any more.

Good suggestions on what they should be spending their money on.

Some comments about Bing trademarks? For them it will be a veeeeery hard fight with that, I think.
Look at Wikipedia and please comment!

Funny thing - in blind search test google and bing are tied:

http://blindsearch.fejus.com/

Bing is not better than Google...yet. However, it has a new paradigm which has the potential to provide a much better user experience than Google: providing answers and decision tools instead of merely links.

Google hasn't had any significant innovation in the search space for a long time. They've been making incremental improvements while milking their cash cow. It's been almost 15 years since we moved from the paradigm of link directories like Yahoo to search engines like Google, and the time is ripe for another paradigm shift. Bing and Wolfram Alpha are part of this shift.

The general rule is that Microsoft software becomes truly useful at version 4. Which might mean we have one more iteration to go. But thus far, Bing appears to be a fairly solid product backed by interesting technology, fully worthy of some marketing dollars.

The paradigm is shifting and Bing has started a whole new discussion about what it will become. I wrote about this in "The Next Generation Search Engine...Isn't A Search Engine" at:

http://themodelisnotreality.blogspot.com/2009/06/next-generation-search-engineisnt.html

In search, Google has become the monopolistic behemoth resting on its laurels; maybe Microsoft is the new Google?

"Customers online don't respond to a brand marketed to them, they respond to the experience they have. If they can accomplish their goal quickly and easily, they return to the site, and tell their friends."

You're probably more than 90% right. As an example, I price airline tickets using Farecast. It was bought by Microsoft a while back, and recently put under the Bing moniker. I still use Farecast not because of Bing, but because it is an excellent way to compare airline ticket prices. I tell my friends about Farecast (not Bing), because it simply works and makes sense - not because it's pretty, not because an advert told me about it, and not because I had an emotional experience with the site.

Thanks for the article.

Hi Mark, it has been a while.
I liked your argument about user experience vs. advertising.
I don't see why competitors shouldn't take on Google and the risk of failure shouldn't be a reason by itself not to try.
More importantly, let's not confuse what a product claims to be with what it actually is. Otherwise, TV would have to offer quality programming.
Instead Bing is an ad engine, and it only needs to bring eyeballs to the ads.
So even if Bing is lousy at search, if there are enough reasons for persons of the right demographics to keep looking at Bing and clicking thru its ads, that is sufficient. And just like TV, Bing can generate all kinds of programs or search events, and then repeat the ones that work extremely well.
It's not a search user experience, it is an ad user experience that Bing needs.
Will it work? Search me...

Keep up the good work!
tex

There are lots of opinions as to whether Bing is number two or was number two or whatever. But regardless of its current rank, it is and will continue to be a major player and those who employ paid search as a strategy need to consider it. See here for more: http://domusinc.blogspot.com/2009/06/bing-yahoo-google-few-new-thoughts.html

Looks like you're right. Bing passed Yahoo search in traffic for a few days, probably because of the hype Microsoft paid for, but now Bing is back to where it was.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/07/quick-peak-bings-reign-as-2-search-engine-lasted-one-day/

Here's the biggest problem I see: Microsoft is spending $100 million with the essential message of "stop wasting time and start getting good results."

That's a great goal; The problem is that bing is a worse time sink! It has a picture each day just inviting you to click around on stuff you were NOT looking for. It allows you to just hover over a video to start wasting time on that.

It's a $100-million campaign for a search engine that has almost no words on a white screen and has superior results for most searches. Hmmm, what does that sound like?

With regards to the couple of comments on the great travel search - I completely agree, but will note that it has been around for many years. First as SideStep and then as Kayak after they acquired SideStep.

Although I agree fundamentally with what you are saying, I think you could have done so with much less Microsoft-bashing. I am not working for Microsoft, but I actually think that their Office products are the best ones out there, and I do not understand why an industry professional like you needs to follow the smug Mac crowd out there and bash Microsoft wherever you can. Yes, they have made a lot of mistakes in the past, but don't forget that they are by far the most successful software company in the history of computers. Trying to challenge the monopoly of someone like Google is not stupid at all - in fact, the community applauds it when Apply tries to steal the smartphone monopoly from RIM, or Firefox the monopoly from Internet Explorer... so why is it suddenly stupid if Microsoft is trying the same? In the worst of cases, it will keep Google on its toes and forces them to develop even better results. Your article would be much better if you reported on this in a neutral fashion.
Sorry about the rant, I needed to say this as I am getting quite sick of it.

It was mentioned a few comments but needs to really be stressed here.

A couple folks have said Bing isn't bad, better than Google in certain areas, for example travel.

You folks have obviously never seen http://www.kayak.com/

Bing's travel search is about a 95% ripoff of Kayak. I'm actually not sure how they have the balls to do such a complete and utter ripoff.

Kayak had a nice, innovative travel search site, and I really hope it doesn't suffer due to MS's ripoff.

I'd be pretty surprised if any of the 'innovative' things in Bing weren't stolen from some other competitor, whether large like Google, or small and unknown. Microsoft has a history of that…

Jeff, I use Kayak all the time. And there's a lot of Kayak's interface that showed up first in farecast.com - which Microsoft now happens to own (but did not when both Farecast and Kayak were starting out). In fact, there was a period about two years ago where one day I popped open Kayak and thought to myself, "Wow, they just grabbed a whole bunch of stuff from Farecast."

As with a lot of interface conventions, you have to dig deep many layers to see who ripped off whom, and that it's often not who you think it is.

Great to see all the commentary, but I have to say that Mark is hardly "Microsoft bashing" -- this is a great analysis of how MS is missing the mark by putting all of their emphasis on advertising instead of really innovating. It's an old-media play: instead of making a better soda, simply outspend your rival on TV spots and buy market share. Unfortunately for MS (and fortunately for the rest of us) the Web doesn't work that way.

Here's the deal, if I was to really boil all these arguments down what I really end up with is:

People hate MSFT because they are MSFT
-or-
Regardless if the product is better, MSFT will never understand how to "be human" and market in today's online society.

Personally, I have nothing against MSFT, hell I worked there for 3 years. I think people are getting wound up about this news not because MSFT wants to play in a dominated (but lucrative) niche, it's that they think they can buy users love with 100 million.

First it was MSN, then Live, now Bing. What's next is what I want to know and also why they're own add url link doesn't even come up in their own search.

Mark - I think most of what needs to be said has been said but do I detect a certain dislike of Microsoft in how you write? Notwithstanding your comment about wishing it would succeed, there's an undertone that suggests your analysis is clouded by a personal dislike.