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Microsoft Rebrands Live Search As "Bing"
JacobSteelsmith writes "Microsoft is attempting to re-brand its Live Search, also known as Kumo. Bing, as it's known, is another attempt by Microsoft to lure consumers away from Internet search leaders such as Google. Microsoft has posted a quarterly loss in its online advertising business, compared to Google's sales, $4.7 billion in the first quarter. According to the Live Search blog, Bing goes 'beyond the traditional search engines to help you make faster, more informed decisions' by combining a 'great search engine' with organized results. It also adds unique tools to help the user make important decisions. It is being touted as a 'decision engine.'"
Bing goes 'beyond the traditional search engines to help you make faster, more informed decisions' by combining a 'great search engine' with organized results.
Organized Results as in "higher rating the more you pay us"?
The Long Now Foundation
MS should seriously just stop trying to "improve" search engines. Its not profitable, labels you as a "Google clone", and unless you have some pretty neat features that can beat Google and iGoogle, you won't end up capturing any marketshare. Sure, there are some things that you could do with searching, such as desktop searches that aren't painfully slow that require tons of indexing, perhaps using algorithms to "guess" where files are placed? All that would be better for MS, but instead they go into the already saturated market with yet another search engine, how many do they have now? MSN, Live, and now Bing? Seriously, stop trying to be Google, you aren't and unless you happen to be really really good at what you do (and from past experiences in trying to be Google you aren't good at it) you won't get any marketshare despite how many ads you run and how many OEMs you bribe to set as the default homepage.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
...because the video shows a big image/background at the top. That's great, but part of the other reason Google is the leader (other than the results it produces) is the fact the page is a no-nonsense zone - sure, you've got the Google logo, but other than that, the page consists nearly entirely of blank space, or text/links. No stupid pointless pictures, no needless button images. It's fast, and it works. Once 'Bing' gets up to capacity though, I reckon it'll be dog slow, because it has useless decor. The search engine isn't the destination: So why the pointless crap?
Microsoft may have posted a quarterly loss, but comparing that with 4.7 billion dollars of gross revenue doesn't even make sense. Did Google make a profit on that 4.7 billion and how much? That's the important question, and none of the press releases linked here have an answer.
-mkb
Yup. Another example of that brilliant Microsoft marketing machine we've all heard about.
I mean, when I think of cool and trendy, I think of Ned Ryerson. Wouldn't everyone want to buy insurance from that guy? Wouldn't everyone want him to do their searches?
The truth is that Microsoft has never had much marketing ability. They just have tons of cash to throw at it, and they've always been good at leveraging monopoly power in one market to win the next. They leveraged their PC DOS monopoly to win the PC GUI environment market with Windows. They leveraged that to win the office suite market. They used their office suite dominance to wipe out Novell by giving big corporations huge Office discounts if they replaced their Novell servers with NT Server. They then leveraged NT Server's dominance to gain dominance in Back Office products like Exchange and IIS. Marketing has had little to do with their success. They of course also tied IE to Windows to thwart Netscape. And every time you installed a new copy of IE it defaulted to msn.com as the home page, otherwise MSN never would have had any market share. The list goes on and on.
We finally come to search engines. Other than making Windows and/or IE default to using Live Search, or whatever it gets rebranded to, they really just don't have much power to tie it to any of the markets they currently dominate.
Guess only time will tell, but I'll be amazed if they gain more than a percent or two from Google in the search market, because I can't see any compelling reason to switch from what I've read so far.
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SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Right or wrong, I always suspect that MS search is designed with the purpose of pointing me preferentially towards MS owned content while Google is more neutral. It is just too easy to imagine the meeting where some aspiring young MBA presents their power-point slides showing how a search portal that secretly directs people towards other company assets will leverage the synergistic potential, or some other BS like that. I just don't trust MS to create a product that puts my interests (neutral indexing of internet content) ahead of their own (market share and stock price).
I think 3 was "Try to make people believe Google is a monopoly so we can sue them and then monopolize another market." That would make 4 the rebranding effort, and I would change the "!!" at the end of 5 to "??".
It's a great name, too bad the momentum has been lost.
And there lies the rub. Sure, there are plenty of us who still harbour deep suspicicions about Google and its motives, but those reservations pale by comparison to those surrounding Microsoft.
Once all the hype about MSN search and Windows 7 has died down, I wonder if Microsoft might be forced into a position where its most secure bastion is MSOffice. Whatever we might think of MS, the latter is still probably the only one of their products that really qualifies as a "killer".
Disclaimer: my personal preference is for OpenOffice or NeoOffice, dependent on platform.
That is absolutely horrible. If I were a Microsoft Bing marketing drone, I would suddenly have gotten a disagreeable spurt of adrenaline into my abdominal circulation, goosebumps, the sudden urge to urinate, cold cold sweat, an incipient migraine, and the urge to run. Run anywhere. Run far away.
How many millions (billions?!) do they spend on marketing and branding. If I paid that much, and all they came up with was Zune, Squirt and Bing .. I'd be pissed and would want a refund.
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
not the town in North Dakota.
For my generation Bing is followed by Crosby.
I am sure the people at MSFT are to young to have that association,
Uh. No, that language has been around since Windows 95, when they promised us that it was the "fastest, most secure version of Windows yet" and that everything we do "will be more fun!"
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Actualy it's:
They're still in step 3.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Holy mother of marketing. They'd do better calling it "Microsoft Bling", at least it'd sound like something someone might actually want to use. This may be the worst product name since Bob.
It's an utterly stupid and non-descriptive name for a search engine, anyway.
Is Google any more descriptive?
Dear Paul:
Google's UI innovation is that people want the fucking UI to get out of the fucking way. People don't want the user interface innovated in new, exciting, and distracting ways. They want you to stick to what works, and make the back end work better. If they notice the user interface, you've failed.
Love, Peter.
A "decision engine" that goes "beyond the traditional search engines" ? Doesn't it sound just like a cheap try to surf on the hype wave from Wolfram|Alpha ?
Your search - ZigZagZoodilyDoo - did not match any documents.
Suggestions:
Personally, I think ZigZagZoodilyDoo is a heckuva lot better than "Bing!" Better hurry up and register it before Microsoft does!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Thanks for the citation.
I'd never heard of "Friends".
And "TV", what's that all about? Sounds cultish.
Google doesn't sound like a euphemism for sexual intercourse when used as a verb.
Also, Google is a reference to the massive number of webpages available through their service.
Bing! is a mindless word MS expects to 'sound cool.'
I'd call it an epic fail. Compare:
I just Google'd Jessica Alba.
I just Bing'd Jessica Alba.
?
"Informed decisions" and "organized results" are somehow corporatespeak?
Perhaps. But 'beyond the traditional search engines' is some BS if I ever heard it. Hint: it's the internet, not a box of cereal. Google won because it was fast and lightweight. Google will continue to win because it is fastest and lightest-weight. No amount of BS is going to change the formula. Even if MS were to create a fast and lightweight search interface, they would weigh it down in no time flat because they couldn't help themselves.
Since my guess is that you work for MS, I'll give you some advice: fast, light weight, and clean. Ring a bell?
Just callin' it like I see it.
That's because english defaults to sex. Atleast certain kinds of sentences do. And "I [verbed] her" is definitely one of those sentences that tend to mean sex.