Microsoft officially launched their new  and updated  Search Engine, called Bing, on28th May 2009.  In this article we have a quick look at the product and, obviously, compare it to the (current) king of search engines, Google.       Firstly, I have to say that Bing has a refreshing (as well as a super-cool) interface.  The screen that I am looking at is an image from the Italian coastline.  There are hotspots on the image that allow me to then jump to related images, videos, maps, etc.  However, this is the USA view (to get to this view, you need to go to http://www.bing.com/?cc=us. If you simply type in bing.com, then you will be taken (in Ireland) to Bing.ie and the experience is radically different.  So, like Google, the development of the USA version is ahead of the European counterpart (have a look at the French, Italian, etc versions and you will see that they are the same as Ireland). The search itself appears to be very fast and focused and compares well to Google.   However, the product really comes into it's own when you search for videos - the results are a series of thumbnails that, when you hover over one, it plays within that thumbnail!  This part of their product has raised some issues around the legality of these.  The following is from the Financial Times: "Among the most striking features of the Bing service, launched on Monday, are small, “thumbnail”-sized video clips that play automatically when a cursor hovers over them. As a result, users do not have to leave the results page to get a taste of what is on a destination site." (Read the complete article) The folks in Microsoft have also included some of the technologies from some of their other business (Travel, Shopping and Maps for example) which certainly adds to the user experience. So, have a play and see what you think.   In the meantime, the question is whether Bing is good enough to ward off Google's domination.  Remember that here in Ireland, Google would appear to have about 99% market share (and Microsoft currently has about zip!).  But in USA, latest figures suggest that Google has a mere 64% marketing share and Microsoft has about 8% (Yahoo has about 20%).   For years, Microsoft, who are primarily an applications company, just could not break into the search business.  While they are way, way behind, perhaps Bing might just be the turning point! Associated reading and reviews:

• “Bing's better-organized results displays and its many helpers that take search beyond ten blue links make it a strong contender for our Editors' Choice for Web search, pending updated reviews of the competition.” (Michael Muchmore, PC Magazine)  
•  “Bing, Microsoft's rebranded and updated search engine, strikes me as a decent competitor to Google. It looks nice and the basic search results appear - although this is an impression rather than a scientific study - to be comprehensive. Bing's most distinctive feature is the technology it has employed for video search, which lets you watch a thumbnail version of a video by resting your cursor on it.” (John Gapper, Financial Times)
•  “Early buzz for Bing has been mixed but positive. The question now is whether Microsoft and Bing can retain a big chunk of those users whom we might call ‘Bing-curious.'” (Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land)
• “I think it's a significant improvement over Live Search. In some ways, it's also an improvement over Google…” (Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle)

And here is a video that describes how and why Bing is better (created by Microsoft!):

Ian Dodson