Microsoft's New Search Engine: Bing!

Microsoft has a new search engine in the brewing.

Judging from the video, it would appear that the rumors that Microsoft plans to attack Google (Google reviews) in their upcoming ad campaign are well-founded. For example, the line “telling you we found 47 million links isn’t always a great response to your query” is a clear shot at Google’s results.

The product does look significantly different than Microsoft’s current search effort – Live Search. Is it actually better than Google? It will take weeks of hands-on use to figure that out, and Microsoft will have to work hard to lure people into trying it out.

In addition to the ad campaign, Microsoft is bringing over its Cashback Rewards program, rebranded as Bing Cashback. Hitwise has indicated previously that this program, which pays people to use Live Search, is working well. Coupled with a better search engine (tbd), perhaps Microsoft will finally start to snatch at least a little bit of search marketshare from Google.

But in the end, it’s all about the search results, and that is something we’ll need to wait and see about.

http://www.discoverbing.com

Hm. Maybe it'll be a way for MS to get a footback aside from live.com's paypal cashback.

Considering how vast a monopoly Google has on search, Microsoft is going to really have to wow us to get a leg up. To relate another concept from this course, considering how connected our networks are in these times, a cascade is going to be difficult to spread unless Microsoft can really, REALLY push its new service. And advertising has never been Microsoft's strong point. So even if Bing can outclass Google on paper, how it actually gets used is yet to be seen.

I agree that in order to Bing to match up to Google's popularity, it will REALLY have to impress people and cause a new change in the social perspective of search engines. I think that over time, an information cascade could occur if Bing is a step-up from Google (especially since Google can't be in the lead forever). Only the search results and time will tell if this cascade will occur.

Also, I'm not sure exactly how the whole "we'll pay you to use Live Search and Bing" works, but it seems that two outcomes could occur:
1. People use the other search engine in order to get the money, and secretly use Google as well because of the results or because it is familiar.
2. Originally #1 would happen, and more people would get too lazy to use Google and start spreading the word of the new search engine.

We'll see what happens as more companies come out with "new and better" search engines.

Yes, I agree with what everyone else is saying. It seems that microsoft is trying to influence at least one person in many clusters, and hoping that one person will be hooked onto Bing, and thus hoping that the majority of the cluster will be affected. They will try to aim for the one that is forming a bridge to another cluster, thus hoping it would then spread to that cluster. And using money as an incentive to try out the product, some one out there will definitely be willing to try it. Of course, immediate results will not be apparent since it would have to take a person searching on google, failed to find what they want, then trying it out on Bing, and actually find what they want. It's like back in the days when askjeeves was still popular until google capability just smashed it to pieces.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/media/05adco.html?hpw

That article is about the advertising wave that Bing is setting forth on this summer. Y'all said that MSFT would have to make a big push to hit nodes in different clusters and they definitely plan on doing that to the tune of $100mill. I know that when I saw their first TV ad during the NBA finals I rewound and recorded it immediately. I then proceeded to show all my roommates and friends cause it was pretty hilarious ad. If this happens across the board, I expect Bing to do pretty well. Just trying it out, some of the features it has are pretty badass. What they're hoping is that people see the ad, get curious, check out the site, and realize how well it works and continue using it. In class we talked a lot about how information cascades are bad, but in this case Bing might truly be better and the information cascade will have a good effect.