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Is Microsoft Trying to Become "King of Search" With Cortana Strategy?
New submitter Ammalgam writes: Microsoft recently announced that they were porting Cortana over to both Apple and iOS. This move seems to be puzzling to the larger Microsoft community because on it's face, Cortana is not per se a commercial product. But there is an interesting theory emerging. Windows10update.com is speculating that the insertion of Cortana into other platforms is a "Trojan Horse" strategy that will ultimately have Windows, iOS and Android users sending their search requests to Bing. The theory is that enough of those requests will bring Bing to Google's level.
A company tries to get their product to be more popular. Sounds like a good strategy. If it works, bully for them. If it doesn't, they'll try something else. Either people will use it or they won't. Bing isn't a terrible search engine......in fact, there are some features that Google buried related to Image search that Bing still keeps up front. Anyone who just uses Google is actually missing out. I use more than one tool to accomplish my task (Google, Bing, and Yahoo plus a few obscure search engines for specialized searches). Each one offers up results that the other doesn't.
samzenpus: "Cortana - what is the difference between its and it's?"
Cortana: "I'd tell you, but let's not pretend you care!"
Having used all three platforms, I don't see the point of this on iOS. Siri is good enough that I don't think you'll get many people to install Cortana, especially as Siri can be activated without having to start an app. Android on the other hand... OK Google hasn't worked as well for me. It's search dictation is fine, but some of those other things that Siri/Cortana can do aren't handled as well by OK Google. I would tempted to install Cortana on an Android phone. But really, if a lot of people started doing this, I have to believe that Google would just fix their own service. It's gonna be a real uphill battle to get adoption across platforms unless one of the other platforms really drops the ball. Maybe if you are a mutli-platform user, you'd want the same service on each device... say you have a surface, you could put Cortana on your phone, as well. Or if you have a Windows Phone, you and Bill could put Cortana on your tablet. And since Cortana is coming to the desktop experience, MS may be counting on that. They could do some tie-in feature so that it works better that way: set something in Cortana on your desktop/laptop, and your phone and tablet know about it. But I still think that's a tough sell.
Yahoo is usually better for pop-culture type of searches.
Can Microsoft provide more appropriate search results than Google? I still use the Google search engine solely because it can find what I need. In my personal experience searching for technical computer documentation; Bing displays Technet articles and advertising, where as google results include more third party content sources(applicable blogs...etc) in the first two pages of results. As long as this is the case, I will not convert no matter how friendly the "Digital Assistant" is.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
You want me to go look it up and help make it "trending", don't you.
Forget it and fuck off.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
A company tries to get their product to be more popular. Sounds like a good strategy. .
Or in other words, of course they are trying to be king of internet search. And its not a 'covert' attempt, nor is Cortana a 'Trojan Horse" as called in the article. Its clearly Microsoft. In fact, I think this is an intentionally "in your face" strategy, not covert.
But some writers like the idea of secretive strategies, enough to invent them.
I didn't know what that was. I had to google it.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
That was obvious the second Microsoft said they were porting it. They want to expand their base for their services. MSFT no longer has a desktop lockin that they used to years ago and so now they have to compete on quality on platforms they don't have control over. Remember when Apple ported iTunes to Windows? Or switched over to using USB rather than firewire? Those weren't to make Apple users feel any better about themselves - it was to target a group of people that didn't use their services.
I use more than one tool to accomplish my task (Google, Bing, and Yahoo plus a few obscure search engines for specialized searches)
Bing is used for one thing, its porn videos.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I think it's pretty irresponsible to refer to a legitimate and legal marketing tactic that is in use by Google and Yahoo as "Trojan Horse". Users know when they install a Bing search app that their searches are not going to Google... Not sure whether that comment came from teh reference article or the poster, but it's a little over the top, even for MS haters on ./
BING
Bing Is Not Google
Let's also not forget, good competition is a good thing. That's true even if part of that competition is a company you dislike, because it forces innovation and cost reduction across the market.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
No, it doesn't sound like a good strategy.
It sounds like "Spray and pray". In fact, people who don't use google do not exactly jump to searching on Bing, mostly because bing is terrible at being a search engine. Are there alternatives? Yes. Is this a way to bring light to them? Not even remotely.
Yahoo is bing, so using yahoo is using bing and is just as much garbage as bing.
. Bing isn't a terrible search engine
It isn't good either. It is closer to bad than it is good.
That is, unless you're a mindless idiot searching for useless information. I've done side by side comparisons, and Google returns better and more complete results than Bing. Unless you're searching for coffee, in which case, Bing returns pretty pictures of coffee beans much more often than Google.
Go ahead, try it on anything more than a simple search. See what you find.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Try it! Remove the safe search, and you'll be surprised!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
So, a long time ago (1996 or 1997), I had made a statement to a friend that "If it's on the Internet, I can find it." This was back when Lycos and Webcrawler and AltaVista were the best search engines. He challenged me to find out how much a bullet fired from an M-16 dropped at 500 yards (back then, it took me 45 minutes to find). He was ex-Marine, so this was information that he already knew.
So, I used that same concept to test your theory. My exact query was:
-- how far will a bullet drop at 500 yards
The Google results were very heavily weighted to a 308. The Bing results included multiple caliber rounds. I think the Bing results are more comprehensive for this query and it is sufficiently non-simple.
I'm sure there are plenty of queries where Google is better, but there are also queries where Bing is better. Which is why I use every tool available to me.