About five months ago Microsoft launched their new search engine called Bing (bing.com). Before that time it was Microsoft’s “Live” search.
Within a week of Bing’s launch “Computer World” reported that it overtook Yahoo.com as the #2 search engine behind Google. Rumors are still out there that it will soon take over the #1 position but right now that isn’t happening. As of the end of July, StatCounter.com, a site that keeps stats on most things cyber, says that Bing had 9.41% of the search market; however, Google is still way in front with 77.54%. Combined Yahoo and Bing earned about 20% of the market. These percentages vary depending on whom you believe but the order remains the same.
The amount of money varies but I have seen varying reports with $1 billion per one percent of the search market per year. Regardless the major search engines make a bunch of money.
At the end of July Microsoft finished its merger deal with Yahoo that started in 2008. Now they will definitely be the #2 search engine. There are many details in the deal that you can Google/Bing for online.
Bing.com itself is impressive.
Their main page always has a picture of someplace that most people have most likely never seen. Today it appears to be a market in Bangladesh which looks much better than it did in the early ’70′s when George Harrison sang about it.
If you hover your mouse around the pictures links will appear. You can click these links and they will tell you about the location of the places, their economy, life of the people, etc. This is better than Google’s simple launch page but Google intentionally built their page to be simple.
The main attraction for me is that the links on Bing are active. After you search, you may hover to the right of any search link and a small box will appear. This box gives you details about the link with other related links in it. It is sort of like a preview of the page. This feature also works when searching for pictures. When you hover over a picture it enlarges slightly and gives you a little info about the graphic. Videos searches, when hovered, actually start playing for a short period with full sound. These previews are good.
The search page keeps a list of related links on the left side of the page with your current browser search history under them. That allows for more interaction than with other search engines.
As far as accuracy – who knows? I have read that each is more accurate than the other depending on the hour of the day. I suggest you try it out if you haven’t already and see if it is better for you than your current search engine. I currently move back and forth between the top two.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 4:12 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
