TechDoze

Finally “Bing” beta is out !!! or is it really !!! Microsoft has been trying to capture the intenet market for quiet some time. In the begining with the MSN search and then with live search, and now with Bing.

There are scores of other internet search websites and portals, including Yahoo Search, ASK and other included, but none of them have been very successful in capturing the average internet user’s imagination. Everyone knows that the key to a great search is to get the results using the least possible keywords, and in the least possible time too. Who cares how many results we get when we try to search for Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie? We want the first result to be the link to what we are searching for.

AdAge reports that 42 percent of all searches need to be refined after the first query. Furthermore, it has been found that 25 percent of all post-search clicks hit the back button instead of a Website link when looking at the search results page.The inability to find what you want on the first try may be where Bing has an edge…or at least, that is what Microsoft believes it will.

One of the prominent “blings” that Bing boasts about is the “related categories” feature. Well you might say that “other popular” search providers have it too. What is so great about Bing? Well I had the same question, so I did some searching of my own, using Bing of course.

A Simple search for the word Microsoft reveals the Microsoft is trying to see the obvious that others are catching up and they need to do so too.

However searching for the word “Apple” gives us MTV Roadies battle Ground as the sponsored result. And Apple, like the fruit turns up sixth in the related searches. What exactly is the user trying to search for is what bing needs to look at.

One of the best things about Google is that one can find links to all of Google’s most used services right from Google’s home page. One-click access to Gmail, YouTube, and Orkut from Google.com is a great feature, and shows that Google knows how integrated all aspects of your digital life are. Yahoo is also a fan of one-click access to other Yahoo services, but have you ever tried to find a link to Hotmail on Live Search? You can’t, because the link to Hotmail doesn’t exist.  
 
 

If Microsoft wants searches to come its way and away from Google and Yahoo, Bing needs to integrate with other Microsoft services like Hotmail and MSN Messenger to name a few and not just the ones directly related to search. For example, Microsoft offers 25GB of free online photo storage. Without a Hotmail account you wouldn’t know about it, because there is no link to it on Microsoft’s two primary portals: MSN and Live Search. Microsoft needs to see that it’s not enough if you have the power, you need to let others know about it. People should see that you have it and they can use it, that’s when you can make some money out of it.

MSN Search first launched in the fall of 1998 and used search results from Inktomi. In early 1999, MSN Search launched a version which displayed listings from Looksmart blended with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from AltaVista were used instead. Since then Microsoft upgraded MSN Search to provide its own Microsoft-built search engine results (list of web addresses with samples of content that meet a user’s query), the index of which is updated weekly or even daily. The upgrade started as a beta program in November 2004 (based on several years of research), and came out of beta in February 2005. Image search was powered by a third party, Picsearch. The service also started providing its search results to other search engine portals in an effort to better compete in the market.

The first public beta of Windows Live Search was unveiled on March 8, 2006, with the final release on September 11, 2006 replacing MSN Search. Windows Live Search aimed to make its over 2.5 billion worldwide queries each month “more useful by providing consumers with improved access to information and more precise answers to their questions.” The new search engine offered users the ability to search for specific types of information using search tabs that include Web, news, images, music, desktop, local, and Microsoft Encarta.

In the roll-over from MSN Search to Windows Live Search, Microsoft stopped using Picsearch as their image search provider and started performing their own image search, powered by their own internal image search algorithms.

On March 21, 2007, it was announced that Microsoft would separate its search developments from the Windows Live services family, rebranding the service to Live Search.And now Bing is out.

That makes Bing the third rebranding in five years, and the fourth, overall, for Microsoft’s search service. Instead of focusing on constant renaming, hopefully, Microsoft has found its final search brand name in Bing.

No matter what Microsoft has planned for Bing, it will be judged against the search’s gold standard: Google.

So what do you think? Will you be Binging or is the Microsoft’s search effort bound to fail?