Why Bing is just another Google

lassebunk — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Update: Google This: 5 Reasons to Switch to Bing

Microsoft recently launched their new search service Bing as a replacement for Live.com — and ultimately Google, I’m sure they hoped for.

I watched this demo video and I must say I’m not impressed. The video is just a bunch of blah trying to sell the product and the product itself is just a replicate of Google — and it’s not even better.

I have watched the video for features and the majority is precisely what Google has done for ages. Check it out:

Bing is called a decision engine — that’s just another word for “organized results”. Google already has this but they don’t name it because it’s a seamless part of their results.

Suggestions — as the speaker types in “home depot”, Bing automatically suggests other searches containing this phrase. Google already does this.

Best match on top — Google already does this but they don’t name it; Bing, I’m sure we all know that the first result is also the best match… duh.

Deep links — Google already does this, finding the most relevant links inside a website and displaying them directly in the search result.

Local listings — Google already does this; I can type “movies new york” and it automatically finds movies running in new york. Or, I can set up my home town and just type “theaters”.

Related searches — Google already does this.

Quick view is a kind of extended summary that displays the contents of the website — Google doesn’t do this, probably because their summaries are good enough without it.

Video previews — good idea, Google should do this.

Simple answers is just another way of saying that you can type in what you are looking for and Bing finds it. Google already does this — let’s have a few examples:

Flights — type in your flight number and Bing finds it. Google already does this.
Traffic — Google has this on Google Maps, could be implemented on Google.com.
Weather — Google has this.
Movie times — Google has this.
Time — Bing doesn’t respond to searches like “new york time”. Google does this.
Currencies — e.g. “100 EUR to USD”. Google already has this.

Categorized results is Bing’s way of guessing what the user is looking for:
A search for “new york” gives you links to travel, maps, weather.
A search for “ford focus” gives you links to reviews, recalls, repair, images.

Google uses related searches to do this, working great in that is uses actual user data to predict the searches. I don’t know how Bing does this but it’s got to be more static than using related searches.

Shopping
The speaker then does a search for “digital cameras” which returns a result with price comparison, reviews etc.

Narrowing down by various features — Google has this.
Item reviews — of course Google has this.

Cashback — just another Microsoft way of locking both the customers and suppliers in to Bing. I’m imagining Microsoft made this to make customers come back to Bing because of the discounts. I think it’s bad business because customers then have to go back to Bing to search for the company instead of just going straight to their website.

Local
Search for “french restaurants new york” — Google has this.
Ratings — Google has this.

Health
Search for “diabetes” show trustworthy sources — good idea, Google should do this, coupled with Google Health.

Travel
Search for flight tickets — Google doesn’t do this (yet).

So… Microsoft has done a wanna-be-but-never-will-be Google in their own skin, but not even that — the colors and layout are not even their own. Too bad, I think — why not focus more on the things you do best; servers, operating systems, computer software? Why do you want world domination? Why can’t you make up something of your own?