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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.'"
"Here, let me bing that for you."
Hmmmm... No.
So what's the new branding going to be after this one fails? Bong?
This has Monty Python written all over it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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
Bing goes 'beyond the traditional search engines to help you make faster, more informed decisions' by combining a 'great search engine' with organized results.
They change the search engine's name in an effort to draw a crowd, then they fuck it up by weighing it down with language that's awful damn close to the infinitely-scalable enterprise class web 2.0 productivity enhancement solution corporatespeak that makes people roll their eyes.
Ned: "Guess who!"
Phil: "Ned? Ned Ryerson?"
Ned: "BING!"
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?
Bing! Fries are done! Hmm. Progress, but still no dice...
True, however:
... thank god for bing."
Developer One: "You know that hot girl I met at the bar last night?"
Developer Two: "Yeah?"
Developer One: "I bing'd her."
Developer Two: "No way! What did you find?"
Developer One: "Bing says she's categorized as head of a right wing conservative group that attracts females and funnels money into Karl Rove."
Developer Two: "Ohhh, dude that sucks, maybe next time?"
Developer One: "Yeah
My work here is dung.
Bing Is Not Google
Yes, on a web site focused on FOSS the readership will now complain about the name selected by Microsoft for their search engine.
Some examples of the naming accumen of the FOSS crowd:
- Ogg Vorbis
- Gimp
- Apache
- IceWeasel
- Thunderbird
- X
- Gnome
- Prefacing thousands of KDE apps with K
- Gnu
- A thousand other recursive acronyms
- etc etc etc
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
According to the Why Bing page:
The price predictor thing sound kinda cool (though pretty easy to clone).
But giving money back on "great products?" Is that like discounts on MS software, or some other silly gimmick? Smells faintly like desperation, that does. I guess we'll see.
Ned: Phil? Hey, Phil? Phil! Phil Connors? Phil Connors, I thought that was you!
Phil: Hi, how you doing? Thanks for watching.
[Starts to walk away]
Ned: Hey, hey! Now, don't you tell me you don't remember me because I sure as heckfire remember you.
Phil: Not a chance.
Ned: Ned... Ryerson. "Needlenose Ned"? "Ned the Head"? C'mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?
Phil: Ned Ryerson?
Ned: Bing!
Phil: Bing.
Good-bye
I'm a little confused, but as best I can figure out:
Microsoft is developing a new search engine that will replace Live Search. The new engine was going to be called Kumo, but they've decided to call it Bing instead. It's still in development and not yet available to the public, but eventually it will be online at bing.com. Presumably, once Bing launches, live.com will redirect there. The search field on msn.com (which most IE users have set as their home page) will redirect there too.
Since the new engine isn't available to the public and most people weren't aware that it was going to be called Kumo, this rebranding is a complete non-story.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
<VOICE type="Chandler Bing">
Could this branding be any more lame?
</VOICE>
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
It's just that (4) isn't clear.
You forgot "~" at the end of first sentence.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Among Microsoft's many problems as a company is that they seem to systematically change the names of their products every few years. This is an incredibly wasteful policy. Every time they enact one of these name changes they:
- throw out years' worth of marketing effort
- break documentation and references throughout their website
- break third-party web resources, including howtos, forum advice, and other forms of community support
- force everyone who has to support the product to change all of their references, documentation, marketing, etc.
Why MS shareholders and partners don't see name churn as having a real, damaging impact on the company's long-term success is beyond me.
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
Of course I didn't RTFA, but I did visit bing.com to watch a promotional video - which surprising enough wasn't done in Silverlight. Two things about this promotional video really stuck out about how bad Microsoft really wants to be Google.
The first thing that struck me was the name. Over time Google's name has become a verb, you can "Google It" (tm) for yourself. So Microsoft innovates the only way they know how by scheduling a series of marketing meetings for their droids to come up with a name that out-verbs the competition. "Bing" there you have it, an uninspired and pathetic attempt to squeeze a brand name into our common vernacular.
The second thing that really caught my attention in the video was the first search they show. While the narrator goes on about revolutionary new ways to search the internet, he pulls up Bing to search for "Hotels in Dublin" - a natural way to search for hotels near Dublin that Google implemented into their mapping engine years ago. Just as the search itself was ripped off from Google, so are the results. A map of Dublin pops up with a number of icons, each representing a hotel exactly as Google did... years ago.
Bing's marketing narrator continues on about these "new ways to search" that feel so familiar, and well, old. I'm not convinced they have anything new to offer, but maybe if they keep saying "Bing" enough they will at least convince themselves. I think the only people who will "Bing" anything in the near future are the same ones who have always used Live Search simply because it was available by default.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
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
If the Slashdot crowd's reaction to a new brand has any predictive power, then Bing is going to be a big hit.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/27/1625208