Not sure, then Bing it!
Bing Search
It’s amazing how web technology has influenced our vocabularly. Some brand names have become verbs in the dictionary. Google it, Facebooked – and now, Binging? On May 28, Steve Balmer unveiled a new search service dubbed “Bing”.
It’s fairly safe to say that Microsoft has been struggling in the world of search. Live Search was never really branded well, nor did it generate the buzz Bing has already amassed. After reviewing search engines, Microsoft found that only half of searchers are successful on their first query. One quarter of the time, people have to re-search what they’re looking for with a new query. 15% of the time, they abandon the search altogether. So, how does Microsoft plan to correct this “search failure” with Bing when Google’s approach was simply a powerful suggestion tool?
In part, they will have a focused part of the Bing service dedicated to shopping, local, travel and health. Health, for example, is reported to search only a handful of trusted websites. Having so much information at our fingertips can actually be dangerous to our own health. Afterall, we’re not doctors – just because we read a list of matching symptoms doesn’t always mean you have a particular ailment, misdiagnosing yourself can be a huge mistake!
Bing Travel is also an interesting portion of Bing (ironic that when you search for Bing Travel in Google, TechCrunch and Facebook rank ahead of the actual search engine). None the less, Bing Travel does a decent job of simplifying the organization of travel online. It brings flights & hotel bookings together, and puts cars and cruises right on the homepage. It even has pre-packaged vacations for you to peruse, courtesy of Orbitz. The flight price predictor is also an interesting feature, although I can see how a feature like this could end up being called the “weatherman of travel”. No matter how much data you have available to you, you won’t always be right. But if it is right, travel from Vancouver to Toronto will be relatively cheap early July!
Finally, many have cited Bing Image Search as a huge jump beyond Google Image Search. It’s definitely pretty cool, how it displays hundreds of photos on one page, but only loads them if you scroll to make them visible on your screen, Blackberry style. You can look at 400 pictures on one page! You can change their icon size, you can preview slightly larger versions without clicking through. But it still comes down to relevance – search for something with a number of possible outcomes (why not Bing), and see what you get. I get Bing cherries, Bing Crosby, Anine Bing – everything but the Bing Logo I was hoping for. So, I had to re-enter my query, the exact thing Microsoft said Bing was out to solve!
Will Bing become a verb like other web based brand names? I don’t think so. We use the phrase Google it because we all associate Google with search. “Hey, did you Facebook those pictures you took when you were camping?” Fairly self explanatory. But Bing? Binging? Binged? The search platform has some strengths, and has already grabbed some market share in the search engine world. But because there’s no one single thing Bing does extraordinarily well, I just can’t see it gaining the status other, more focused brands have achieved.
