Microsoft Bing Review – Rich Interface, Related Searches ..and more
Microsoft Bing is Live and here are couple of interesting features to look at:
Bing Preview/Snippets
When you hover on a search result, you will see the orange icon – which gives you a quick preview of the site (text preview). Very useful, if you are still not sure of clicking (gone are the days, when one would feel lucky about web searches)
Bing: Related searches are useful
Microsoft is using Powerset technology and it shows up in the result – understanding of intent is fairly better than Google (search for ‘cat’ and you will know what I mean).
Bing: Rich Interface (not at all Googlish)
Personally speaking, I am bored of Google’ texty UI and won’t mind using a richer interface – as long as it does an equal/better job. Bing fits in.
Bing : What hasn’t worked well so far?
xRank – a technology that keeps track of notable people and puts them in order for you.
MS counts Live Search web searches for movie stars, musicians, and other famous people and then compiles it’s findings into an insightful ranking formula that tells you who the world is searching for most. The result is a cultural snapshot of who’s hot and who’s not!
xRank works well for US focused queries, but not otherwise (maybe, global launch of this feature should have been held, unless MS had collected substantial data)
While it’s too early to say Bing is better than Google or not, it surely will eat into other’s pie (read: Why Microsoft Calls it’s new search engine Bing?).
It seems powerful – MS is finally getting web right (hope so!).
All said and done, the search game has just begun.
What’s your take?
Also see: Review of WolframAlpha – Not a Google Killer, But is a Serious Threat
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
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Advanced search options appears to be very limited, or did I overlooked something.
i liked bing overall…:)
Bing is a very intelligent move by Microsoft, when looked at from the business perspective. They are trying to steal all of Google’s advertising dollars. And if Bing proves to be more popular for shopping-related searched, they will succeed.
From the search perspetive, it is not much different than Google from what I can tell. But Microsoft is targeting the $$$ part of the search market, which if you ask me is a good long term strategic move on their part. If anything, it will force Google to be more creative, which will benefit us (the searchers) most.
So its a good thing Microsoft released Bing, if for no other reason than it will up the ante in the search-engine industry.
I am completely disgusted with Bing, I never asked for it but it downloaded automatically. And suddenly I’m getting all this disgusting porn on my computer. Which I blamed my kids for, until I discovered your wonderful Bing and started researching. I just wanted to thank you for bringing that filth into my house. I’ve tried to change the settings and your instructions are about asclear as mud. So I’m switching to Firefox and only using Internet Explorer on sites that require it. I’m completely disgusted with Microsoft.
“I am completely disgusted with Bing, I never asked for it but it downloaded automatically”
Seriously? It “downloaded”. Automatically?
Bing is much better than I had originally expected it to be. Although I doubt it will ever catch up to Google in terms of popularity. At least they have a different cool picture every day!