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Has Bing Already Overtaken Yahoo?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the very-good-name dept.

nk497 writes "Microsoft's newly revamped search tool Bing has already overtaken Yahoo in the US and globally, according to StatsCounter. The net traffic watcher said Bing has topped Yahoo 16.28% to 10.22% in the US, and 5.62% to 5.13% globally. Though the firm noted Bing's popularity may drop off after the excitement wears off, the firm also said: 'Steve Ballmer is quoted as saying that he wanted Microsoft to become the second biggest search engine within five years. Following the breakdown in talks to acquire Yahoo at a cost of $40 billion it looks as if he may have just achieved that with Bing much sooner and a lot cheaper than anticipated.' Google, of course, still leads by a considerable margin."

49 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Not really by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's hard to see how someone wrote this post today - when the same site shows that Bing surpassing Yahoo! only lasted for a day. TechCrunch already pointed this out yesterday. Bing may or may not have a big impact - but I think it will take some more time before we know whether it will or not. There is certainly a very long way to go before it even begins to approach google.

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    1. Re:Not really by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've submitted stories before to only have them accepted up to four days later. That's probably what happened here. Shame the editors didn't catch it.

    2. Re:Not really by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 4, Funny

      Only if they keep themselves up to date by reading tech-centric sites such as slashdot.

      Oh wait...!!

    3. Re:Not really by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not what happened in this case - tfa is dated today.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    4. Re:Not really by TropicalCoder · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When I saw this story on Slashdot just now I thought - is this a story or a paid commercial promotion? It is clearly way to soon to be evaluating the impact of bling (or whatever it is called - I am not paid to help establish brand recognition so I won't repeat it). It should also be obvious that there will be a lot who will click it out of curiosity alone and never go back again, as I did. Since Microsoft has made it clear that they intend to spend a fortune to promote bling, all articles become suspect since we are all well aware of how Microsoft routinely buys journalists and bloggers, and that in fact this is their preferred method these days. In the end, I arrived at the decision that this is simply a timley story like any other to the Slashdot editors who know that we are interested in all things Microsoft. Obviously this site wouldn't enjoy the success it does if they pass off paid commercial promotions as subject matter, but there are so many others doing this that if I were an editor I would take pains to avoid even the appearance of such a thing.

    5. Re:Not really by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It is simply proof that if you throw away a truckload of cash in advertising you can get anyone to try something once. As someone who uses Yahoo Search(I personally think it is MUCH better than Google's) I'm afraid Bing just doesn't compare. Let me give an example.-

      I just tried a search in all three engines. I searched for "The Dark Knight". In Yahoo there is a little blue button below the search box which is the "more" tab. In that under Dark Knight I got not only the ones you would expect on the left, like Dark Knight reviews and trailers, but the related concepts has interviews with Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale, articles about Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker, etc. Two thumbs up on giving me not only the information that I was looking for, but in also giving me a springboard to learn much more right there at the top thanks to the blue "more" button. The only downside is the button needs to be more clearly labeled.80/100, 20 points off for not clearly labeling the GUI.

      Now Google,same search. Their version of a "more" tab is a few links at the bottom, as clicking more at the top simply gives more Google software unrelated to my search, like Google Blogs. The results at the bottom are also more useless than Yahoo's, as there is links for The Fantastic Four and Iron Man there. These of course have nothing to do with the subject of my search the Dark Knight. While many of the main searches are the same, the lack of a "more" tab and related concepts means I'll have to do more work to search related subjects. I also would have had a hard time finding the excellent interview I just read with Christopher Nolan about the movie as I had no idea who the director was on Dark Knight. So I give it a 65/100.

      Now let's try Bing-OMFG! Who the hell wrote this thing? I'm sorry, but this just sucks. While its main search algorithm works in a similar manner to the big two the related searches make no fricking sense. I have Dark Knight Houston, Dark Knight Shoes? and links to Dark Angel. Oooookay. Apparently it is the same search engine they had when it was MSN, which we all used to make fun of for had bad it would try to "help" and shill products. For those that never had the 'pleasure' you could type something like "Nissan" and get links for table lamps. It was pretty much ads disguised as a search engine. So considering out of the three engines I got the most useless amount of "helpful" links out of bing i would give it a thumbs down-45/100.

      So I think we can see with this little demonstration why Bing had a search and then dropped right back down to the bottom of the barrel. because anyone who uses Google or Yahoo who tries this thing is going to see how piss poor its related searches are (Dark Knight Shoes?) and go back to the big two. While I am glad they didn't buy Yahoo because like everything web related MSFT touches it would have ended up "Yahoo Live Search 2.0 Optimized for Windows Vista" or some other bling bling nightmare, just doing this single search I can see that MSFT better buy a search engine from SOMEBODY, because they have a shitty one now. In the non web world MSFT can get by with just having an "okay" product by pushing it heavily with advertising. With the web competition is only a single click away and that trick isn't going to work. Which is why they are at #3 and will probably stay there. Because if it is one thing has taught us, it is that despite all their money MSFT hasn't got a fricking clue when it comes to the web.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    6. Re:Not really by JoeMerchant · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's an easy to anticipate effect - try the new thing.

      My search queries typically consist of Google, and not-Google, just in-case Google isn't getting what I'm looking for. My not-Google used to be Yahoo, but when Cuil was new I tried it for a while, the results out of Bing are much more impressive than Cuil, it might permanently replace Yahoo as my not-Google search engine, but when not-Google isn't the new thing to try out, it only gets about 2-5% of my search traffic, as compared to 30-50% when trying something new.

    7. Re:Not really by Aladrin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not TFS. TFA. TFA is dated TODAY. Go click the link. It really doesn't hurt.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    8. Re:Not really by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

      Apparently it is the same search engine they had when it was MSN

      It's not. You might have missed the story, but Microsoft had actually bought out PowerSet to replace the old search engine, and that's what powering Bing.

    9. Re:Not really by wintermute000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's merit to what you're saying but you're failing to take into account the scale of the difference.

      Internet penetration in the altavista/lycos (remember them lol) days was far less than now. The internet and google are intertwined in people's heads. Was altavista ever a verb?

      Now the first thing people do when they want to find something online is google. That's ordinary people, the kind who keep clicking on the blue E icon because it stands for interweb and that's how they've been wired. Google are forunate in that they've achieved overwhelming dominance at the 'critical mass' point of internet usage.

      I agree that if something is better then it may displace google. However the odds are now magnitudes larger than back in 1999.

      On a side note, I cannot believe how much money they make off advertising.... does anyone actually click on internet ads? (answer is obviously yes but personally I can't even recall more than half a dozen times in the last 10 years lol).

  2. Not so fast! Has bing bung? by peterdaly · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not so fast. Same source indicates the bing has already fallen back down to (less than) live.com levels.

    TechCrunch: Bing was #2 for a day then Yahoo regained its place as Bing fell.

    "As Matt Cutts (who yes, works for Google) points out in the comments, StatCounter updates every few hours, so there is also data for today already. And itâ(TM)s more bad news for Bing. Itâ(TM)s now down to 5.65% in the U.S. â" yes, thatâ(TM)s less than what Live.com was at last month."

    --
    Soccer Goal Plans
  3. StatCounter's Baidu Stats is Alarming by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm skeptical of this data--at least worldwide. When I click the gs.statcounter.com link and go to Statistic:Search Engine and Country/Region:Asia I see Baidu at an alarmingly low rate. Barely even recognizable. The CSV sheet shows it at zero until 03/05/2009 which is hilarious and then it bumps up to 1%. Yeah, I think they have some problems with their data collection methods or who is reporting this data anyhow. Maybe their software's only in English? I don't know but that data alarms me and I would take their stats in other realms lightly as that's a vote of no confidence from me--something is skewed horribly and I don't like it. They might be right about Yahoo! compared to Bing but this is certainly not reassuring.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:StatCounter's Baidu Stats is Alarming by aodhan · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm from StatCounter and I would just like to address your concern. The detection for baidu was added on the 5th March 2009 at 21.00 GMT. When a new detection is added it is noted on the visual graph (but not in the csv download).
      Also if you look at the stats just for China you can easily see Baidu's dominance there.

    2. Re:StatCounter's Baidu Stats is Alarming by aodhan · · Score: 5, Informative

      We talk about our methodology here.
      Our stats are based on aggregate data collected by StatCounter on a sample exceeding 4 billion pageviews per month collected from across the StatCounter network of more than 3 million websites. From this sample we analyze the sources of the referring traffic to compile our search engine reports.

  4. Bada by Mana+Mana · · Score: 3, Funny

    Bing Is Not Google

  5. as much as it pains me to do this... by castironpigeon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I did a little experiment. I loaded up IE, hit the search button, typed something in, and ran the search. Whaddayaknow, Bing comes up with the search results. So every idiot that has the same Windows installed as the day they brought it home from Walmart with IE as the default browser and the little search button as their only gateway to the world is going to use Bing whether they know it or not. Apparently there are quite a few such idiots. Are we surprised?

    --
    mmmm...forbidden donut
  6. The sound of "found": Bob Hope by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Funny

    This morning, our dear leader Steve Ballmer is unveiling our completely new search service, unrelated to anything we at Microsoft have ever done before: Bob Hope.

    We spent lots of time listening to you, except when you told us how much MSN Search^W^W Live Search^W^W Kumo sucked 'cause you're just wrong about that, to learn which buzzwordy Web 2.0 thingies you use search for today. Finding a webpage that has anything to do with the search terms you entered is so passe, dahling.

    So today we're introducing a new kind of search, that goes beyond traditional search engines that do tedious things like find stuff, to instead help you make faster, more informed decisions. (Windows 7 is peachy keen, by the way.) We think of Bob Hope as a Decision Engine. We've sued Stephen Wolfram into atomic dust using our patents on FAT and Mono, co-opted the Wolfram Alpha engine and swapped Mathematica for Visual Basic and Wolfram's brain for the exhumed corpse of Bob Hope.

    So why did we pick Bob Hope as the new core of our search? We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world.

    And just look at these results!

    What do we want?
    Braaains.
    When do we want them?
    Braaains.
    What do I need to run Windows 7?
    Braaains.
    What's Bill Gates got that means you should buy everything you can from the company he founded?
    Braaains.
    What's the final proof of Steve Ballmer's equal genius to Steve Jobs?
    Vistaaa.

    This is something new, something improved! You need to try it! It'll give so much more betterer results than that other search engine we can't name because Steve will wedge another chair up our butts! Please, come and try our new and improved service! FOR GOD'S SAKE TRY THE DAMN SERVICE. OR THE PUPPY GETS IT. We're Microsoft. We're serious as a heart attack on this one.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  7. Now I'm waiting for the new Bing ad onslaught... by hal2814 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You know the next onslaught of Bing ads will claim:

    "More popular than Yahoo!"*

    * For one day after weeks of massive advertising, Bing beat out Yahoo in website traffic. Results not typical.

  8. Redirects by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How long before M.S. sends out an update that automatically redirects URL typos to Bing?

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Redirects by nschubach · · Score: 5, Funny

      Tuesday. That's when all the patches come out. ;)

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    2. Re:Redirects by T+Murphy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      At work on Friday I mistyped a URL and it brought me to Bing. I didn't know what it was and assumed it was a re-routed parked domain or something - I didn't bother looking at it since I didn't recognize it. So my first impression of the site, thanks to the redirect, was that it was an annoying ad site.

      --
      My webcomic
    3. Re:Redirects by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fair's fair. Yahoo only gets traffic via of all the browser-hijacking toolbars it's managed to sneak onto people's machines.

      (Or is it because Yahoo's adverts create more of an emotional connection with people...?)

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:Redirects by je+ne+sais+quoi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      At work on Friday I mistyped a URL and it brought me to Bing. I didn't know what it was and assumed it was a re-routed parked domain or something

      The only reason I even knew bing existed was from reading slashdot. I'm a bit of a luddite so I don't catch onto the latest fads (e.g. I had texting is banned from my cell phone) but I think that it's right that the only people who know about bing are the ones who were looking for it, or are interested in computing in general. Therein lies the problem for MS. They could pour billions into advertising but I think most people tune out commercials nowadays, don't they?

      I don't have cable, so I searched for the bing commerical on youtube. I watched it, it seemed like useless fluff that's not going to convince anyone to try anything because they never actually said what their search engine did differently from google, except that it was better (better at what? finding restaurants? searching for back pain? wtf?).

      --
      Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
  9. Amused by their general marketing.. by Junta · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1. Their marketing strategy seems to be to push the name 'Microsoft' as far away as possible. Interesting they view their own name as a liability in this space.

    2. 'Bing is not google' abbreviation seems particularly weird. Suggesting that currently google has an oppressive, monopolistic grip on the search industry, leaving little choice but to have to go with them as they are the defacto standard. The company that wants to save a market from an oppressive, de-facto standard monopoly is.... Microsoft?

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  10. Re:Prime Time Commercial by bersl2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I saw a Bing commercial. It makes me want to choke someone to death with my bare hands.

  11. Reminds me of Groundhog's Day by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Funny

    I dated your sister until you told me not to? BING! Needlenose Ned! BING!

    Man, I've seen that movie so many times.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  12. They are not idiots, stop with the snobbery by blahbooboo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I did a little experiment. I loaded up IE, hit the search button, typed something in, and ran the search. Whaddayaknow, Bing comes up with the search results. So every idiot that has the same Windows installed as the day they brought it home from Walmart with IE as the default browser and the little search button as their only gateway to the world is going to use Bing whether they know it or not. Apparently there are quite a few such idiots. Are we surprised?

    People like you are why IT people get a bad rap.

    Why is someone an "idiot" who does not care what search engine or browser they use? You are into (or do it professionally) IT, so this sort of thing is important to YOU. I bet in other fields, maybe for example sake investing, people could say "Wow, you're an idiot for not performing a split. Moron!"

    Fact is different things are important to different people. It doesn't make them an idiot.

    1. Re:They are not idiots, stop with the snobbery by Kamokazi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No, the real reason IT people get bad raps is because they are cranky from dealing with idiots all day. We don't call people idiots or morons because we think they are generally stupid. Idiot is easier to say than "inexperienced or complacent user". I refer to inexperienced or complacent users as idiots (or other equally derogatory word) when talking to other "IT people" (professionaly or not) all the time for simplicity (and probably as a vent for frustration).

      I know full well they are not stupid (most of them), heck I've called some of the smartest people I know idiots or morons because they couldn't handle a computer to save their life. We use terms like that as a reference to their computer skill, not overall intelligence. If some other IT guy refers to someone as an idiot, I immediately know their skill level with using a computer is limited to being able to check Facebook, or less.

      Maybe you should just lighten up and take less offense? It's not like we call people idiots to their faces. Unless they really deserve it.

      --
      As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable Slashdot 2.0.
    2. Re:They are not idiots, stop with the snobbery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He's not criticizing you for commenting, he's criticizing you for calling these people "idiots".

      Having different interests/priorities than you doesn't make someone an idiot.

    3. Re:They are not idiots, stop with the snobbery by Atriqus · · Score: 3, Funny

      Good catch.

      *ahem* It's like a mechanic going up to an IT guy picking out a car and saying "What do you mean you don't care if it's the two or four door model?! You're a fucking idiot!"

      --
      Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
  13. It's the apps stupid! by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Around a decade ago, it was enough to have a better search engine to get people to switch. But in the meantime, google has me hooked on mail, sites, and documents. Other people use other apps, but just like Microsoft snagged the desktop OS market based on it being the default on commodity hardware and then maintaining it with applications later, I believe Google will keep it's top spot on the same idea.

    Migrating from a search engine simply is a lot of hassle now especially since it's diminishing returns, I have a feeling that "perfect" results and google and maybe even bing won't be that far apart from each other. Also, a decade ago, the internet was more of a wild west in terms of searching for information about some topics far and wide. You just didn't know what sites had relevant information. These days, a great majority of my searches start as "X Y wikipedia" because now there is a centralized spot for info.

    I applaud Microsoft's effort though. Competition is always a good thing and might bring something unexpected or at least keep google honest and on its toes. Also, the bing page has learn/copied the good part of google, and that is the minimalization. A far cry from the horrendous "portal"idea that Yahoo, MSN, comcast.net, AOL, and others are still attached too.

    1. Re:It's the apps stupid! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How is this related at all? You can still store your documents, code, and mail with one provider and use a different one for search.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:It's the apps stupid! by noidentity · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agreed; Google is getting more on my nerves every day, partly because it doesn't do as told. I search for "foo bar" and it shows pages without any mention of "bar". OK, so search for "+foo +bar", and get my hits. Then try searching for "generic.h" and it returns pages with the string "generic" (no .h). Even adding a + doesn't avoid this. And then it regularly "corrects" my "misspellings", causing the wrong search. Once I finally get it searching for what I asked it to, it puts lots of irrelevant hits first.

    3. Re:It's the apps stupid! by jefu · · Score: 3, Informative

      Have you tried the "special searches". They have searches aimed at code for the major OSs - Linux, BSD, Microsoft and when I just tried it with "generic.h" in the Linux special search I got a bunch of hits on header files.

      But there are also some specialized code search engines around - though I don't have pointers to them, I've used a couple and they can be quite good (and, of course, sometimes quite bad).

    4. Re:It's the apps stupid! by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yahoo mail is free because of advertising on their web-mail portal.

      Which is no longer the cheapest option around.

      For $19.99 a YEAR you get IMAP access and no ads in your emails.

      For 0$ a year you get IMAP and no ads in your emails with Google.

      I wasn't aware gmail even had IMAP access let alone for gratis but I would be curious to know how they can do that unless they are injecting adwords into your emails.

      It's simple. They use GMail to better target ads. A robot looks through your e-mail messages content and when Google serves ads to you when looking at Web pages, they use that data to better target ads. This means you're more likely to be interested in the ads they present and more people click on them, making Google money from advertisers. It sure beats paying for e-mail and I prefer ads to actually be something that might interest me.

    5. Re:It's the apps stupid! by epine · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Lexical processing is Google's Achilles heal. It's a royal pain when search results come back which silently discard odd-duck search terms. Try searching for "SAMe". Interesting, today for the first time, Google actually has a correct lexical match as the top result. The other day I had a search term where a punctuation mark was a critical disambiguator. That didn't work too good.

      One that I beat my head against all the time is electronic component part numbers. The full, full, full part number using ends in six alphabetic digits which describes the production variant, right down to what the production engineer ate for breakfast that morning. It's kind of like net, net net, and net net net in real estate. (Interestingly, today Google returns pages titled "triple-net" for a search on "net net net". Another small improvement behind the scenes.) You'll often get the net net part name in distributor's catalogues, but if you want the data sheet, you often need to search on the just the root of the part, if you can guess which prefix stem that might be.

      Of course, what you really want is to search on AT91SAM7* or AT91* depending on whether the programming technique in question applies to one part or the extended family.

      And please, for the love of God, when I type in the part number which I know in advance is correct for the datasheet I'm seeking, return at least *one* authoritative hit in the top ten from the actual company that makes the part in question (by the billions, in some cases). Argh!!!! Argh!!!!!! Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some vendors manage to place themselves in the top ten for their own parts, most don't. What's the problem? Is serving up your own data sheet too much like support and not enough like sales? Are these companies deliberately detuning their search results? The situation baffles me.

      It's my daily sports fix hitting that little "vaporize into the cloud" button on top scoring results from alldatasheets.com which teases but doesn't deliver.

      I suspect its not zero cost to extend Google to fully handle the long, long, long tail of variously truncated designator strings.

      Another one: when I type "R" I mean the R language. Always. Get over it. If Google is going to gather my click trail, there's the one main thing they need to digest on my behalf. Thousands of queries over on r-seek and they still don't get it, usually discarding the term "R" entirely if it doesn't fit their prebuilt result for the companion search terms. +R doesn't work well either, as it forces Google to return every document index with an "R" subsection.

      This is something that no software application has yet achieved. It's the baby Turing test. Identify three to ten personal-style hot buttons of the particular user, and then *don't do them*.

      Instead, we've invented the world's shortest short bus: the software watches me replace with the original text the auto-correct garbage just inserted by Word (if I'm in for a bout of self-flagellation) or some other high-function IDE, and then auto-correct restores the thing I just manually deleted. Several times in a row, in a pique of futility. Isn't that the technical definition of a failed marriage?

      If the Unabomber says to you "don't do that", while making eye contact for the first time in a decade, does it register? For Microsoft products, hardly ever. For Google, not quite enough.

      I'm not taking any other version of the Turing test seriously until this one is dispatched.

    6. Re:It's the apps stupid! by eulernet · · Score: 3, Informative

      For searching code, use Code Search: http://google.com/codesearch
      It's a lot more relevant.

      But I agree that the new Google is irritating, with its pitiful attempts to correct spelling.
      This is what you get when you dumb down the interface.

  14. Indeed not really! by siloko · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bing may or may not have a big impact

    Well a quick straw poll in my building suggests Bing hasn't even surpassed yelling down the corridor so it's got a looong way to go!

  15. Re:FRAUD ALERT: Slashvertisement? by TheP4st · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, they are also famous for heavily discrediting open source and providing Steve Ballmer with free chairs.

    --
    "I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
  16. "Microsoft+Antitrust" by MrKaos · · Score: 4, Informative
    Was a test search I entered into bing to compare with what came out for google and yahoo.

    google returned these three first:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_antitrust_case http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/microsoft-antitrust.html

    So I compared that to Yahoo:

    http://www.microsoft-antitrust.gov/ http://www.zdnet.com.au/tag/anti_trust-eu-microsoft.htm http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/0,2000061744,39202361,00.htm

    Bing returned these three first:

    http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/legalnews.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/legal_newsroomarchive.mspx?case=Government%20Anti-Trust%20Case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_antitrust_case

    If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. - Joseph Goebbels

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  17. Does "IT Pro" run paid ads as articles? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Informative

    Some of the articles in "IT Pro" magazine seem to me to be ads. Here are other articles:

    Can Microsoft make a success out of Silverlight? Quote: "... Microsoft's Silverlight weighs in at just a four-megabyte download, and apparently takes just 10 seconds to install." Another quote: "So how has Silverlight fared, and can it really topple Flash?" Silverlight is far, far behind Flash.

    Can Google or Microsoft get any bigger? Quote: "... Google, along with Microsoft, is so large and so dominant in its sectors, that both firms are hitting a point where their potential for profitable growth is limited." Another quote: "Certainly the pair of them own their key markets, ..." Google and Microsoft are not a "pair".

    This is the article, published today, to which this Slashdot story linked: Has Bing already overtaken yahoo? But that article no longer exists, apparently. Now that link takes visitors to another article: UPDATED: Bing and Yahoo battle it out for second in search. Quote: "One stats firm has said Microsoft's Bing has already caught up to rival Yahoo, just a week after launch - but it's since slipped back to third." Bing hasn't "slipped back to third", Bing has dived in the ratings, and is now far behind Yahoo.

    1. Re:Does "IT Pro" run paid ads as articles? by kenbo0422 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can't see how anything MicroSoft puts out there could rival either Yahoo or Google. They don't really have the best of anything, the dominate by the 'deluge' factor. All the 'Live' stuff that's forced on you through MicroSoft Products has already existed at Google or somewhere else and MicroSoft being the Borg Monopoly it is, is just trying to break down the door in an area that most of us really don't want to see their footprints. Stick to the software you used to make exclusively, guys! They're so spread out now that any innovation from a competitor may not pull the rug out from under them, but it can jerk them around.

  18. FYI by T+Murphy · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you don't know what Bing is, you should just Google it.

    --
    My webcomic
  19. Not acid3 compliant? by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 3, Informative

    I just installed Opera-10 beta bc Opera says it is 100% acid3 compliant, and went over to Bing and chose to search for an image. When I tried to modify the search filter settings from the default (moderate) to no filter, the popup that had the checkboxes appeared UNDER the image windows, making a selection impossible.

    As usual MS seems to be ignoring standards.

  20. Uh, evidence? by TropicalCoder · · Score: 4, Informative

    Summarized PDF

    1. Re:Uh, evidence? by TropicalCoder · · Score: 4, Insightful

      not any evidence whatsoever in response to the GPs question.

      Our mission is to establish Microsoft's platforms as the de facto standards throughout the computer industry.... Working behind the scenes to orchestrate "independent" praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy's, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. "Independent" analyst's report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them).

      "Independent" consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour).

      "Independent" academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted).

      "Independent" courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.

      I think that is some evidence. I combined that with my own observations. Your observations may be different than mine.

      anything from Groklaw should be dismissed out of hand due to incredible bias.

      Yes, Groklaw is biased - towards those in favour of upholding the rule of law whether it's against convicted monopolies or scam artists trying to destroy Linux. However, they do supply a link to just about every little detail backing up whatever is the subject of the day. This permits the reader to follow the evidence and come to their own conclusions, as you have just done.

  21. People still use Yahoo? by Ruger · · Score: 3, Funny

    Didn't even know they were still around.

  22. It'll return... by Tragedy4u · · Score: 3, Funny

    Bing, the search engine that'll return more links than you can throw a chair at!

  23. Good, Bad, Ugly by salesgeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good - Easy to use, decent results, refreshing look.
    Bad - Poor related links.
    Ugly - Can't try out everything because I don't have silverlight on my laptop and cell phone.

    I'm wondering if bing is more about Silverlight than it is about being better than MSN Search or Live.

    --
    -- $G