Bing: the next Google?

Tech tips -

A few columns ago we talked about Google's search engine and that company's efforts to refine your search results and target ads towards your search history. What would the web be without the ability to search?

Google is currently the undisputed king of search. Microsoft, however, wants a piece of that search action but was unable to accomplish that want through its Windows Live Search offering. Microsoft has now "evolved" Live Search into a new product called Bing.

Available at www.bing.com or www.bing.ca (Canada) the home page displays a scenic "picture of the day" but other than that, the user interface is very clean.

You know as well as I do that searching for something online can be a very frustrating experience. Getting relevant search results while not having to click endless links can be quite the task. I am getting good at refining my search results, but there are still times when I am surprised by what my search returns. Microsoft said it hopes to fix this with Bing.

Calling its new search a "decision engine" rather than a search engine. The marking machine talks about people using the web to help them make informed decisions. Microsoft has identified four key areas that they would especially like to assist us searching on the web and making those decisions. Those four areas are travel, shopping, health and local.

It is an interesting concept; however, Bing hasn't proved to be that well developed for rural Newfoundland. You can easily notice the difference between the Canadian Bing website as compared to the United States. Travel, shopping and local are not even listed as categories in Canada. I don't know to what degree the Canadian search capabilities will be developed, but the "cashback" feature available for the US just might catch some people's attention.

Carried over from "Live Search Cashback," if you search for a product using Bing Shopping, click a cashback listing and buy the product you will receive a percentage of the purchase price back as cash that is payable to a pay pal account, bank direct deposit or via a check in the mail through your Bing cashback account.

Although other websites offer cash back programs, by using Bing the percentage of cashback is clearly identified in the search results. Now, that's what I would call an ingenious way to get people to use your search engine; get them to do to all off their online shopping through you. Comparison pricing is automatically listed as part of this "shopping experience."

If this catches on, how can any merchant not participate if they are big on e-commerce? Can you say enormous revenue stream for Microsoft? Anyway, enough of that as cashback via Bing is only available for US residents and merchants at this time.

I am quickly running out of space to talk about Bing so I will cut it short. I like how my search history is displayed and I like how the results are broken down into categories. The current limited Canadian development means for me the Bing is primarily a search engine, not a decision engine.

If you want to do a side by side comparison between Bing search and Google search you should browse on over to www.blackdog.ie/google-bing These guys have created a webpage that allow you to search with both engines at the same time displaying results of both in the same window. Try a few searches and decide for yourself if Google has anything to worry about.

toddmusseau@gmail.com