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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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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,
Actualy it's:
They're still in step 3.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost