Analysts: Microsoft Bing a good start, but no game changer

Bing is a "decision engine"? OK, I've made my decision. My decision is not to support Microsoft in any way, shape, or form. I won't use it much if at all.

Google? No, as a company I don't like them or trust them either but... they do have a superior product IMNSHO. I still hope alternative search engines like Cuil and Mooter improve enough to compete.

I still amaze at how tone-deaf MS is when it comes to advertising and product names:

Quoting: One insider said Microsoft chose the name because "bing" represents the sound made when a person finds something they're looking for.

They really need to mingle with the real world a little more.

Maybe MS' crappy search thingy is why they say wrong things like this,when a quick Google search would have set them straight:

Quoting: During an appearance at the D7 conference, where Microsoft unveiled Bing, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the name was chosen because it was short, worked for a global audience and didn't have any negative connotations

No negative connotations?

http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/29075/

Quoting: bing: meaning prison or jail

I thought Bing was a famous crooner. ... And a wife beater.

Now they're calling it Bing- "But It's Not Google."

More here: http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/29074/

This is fun :)

One of M$'s strategies is to change the meaning of common English words. Sentences like "Do it in Word on Windows 2000" would have been considered unintelligible English, in both syntax and semantics, before 1985.

On this one, though, I think they're too little, too late. They've already dithered on their web search strategy too much, and this one is already carrying the weight of previous failures. Rebranding it a "decision engine" is not filling a vocabularic void, as "Windows" did when the GUI was just entering mainstream use (note the commonly used "X Windows" rather than "X Window System"). Instead, "decision engine" is trying to supplant "search engine," which is already in popular usage.

Rats, as I was typing this, tc got her response in, so I'll just add this one note:

"Bing" may be a type of cherry, but "cherry" also carries its own slang meanings...

Microsoft...competing on quality...ROFLMAO...

I don't want Microsoft (bing) cherry picking my search results for me. I just don't trust them.

I can imagine what a Bing search on Linux will provide... lots of Stan Beer and Preston Galla articles and the like proclaiming Linux dead.

At least the intro-video on bing.com runs on Flash 10; so they already found out Silverlight ain't gonna work.

I put bing into google and this turned up (NSFW)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4iiyRv_NrQ

Maybe M$ could use it to appeal to the hipsters LOL

I will not use a Microsoft run or affiliated site. Google may not be perfect, but they usually at least make an attempt to "do the right thing". Microsoft on the other hand can generally be predicted to do the wrong thing.

Google tries to do the right thing? You've got to be kidding me!

http://news.oreilly.com/2008/08/google-earth-delivers-geogra...

Yes, they corrected the issue:

http://news.oreilly.com/2008/09/change-to-google-earth-requi...

but they same sort of thing has come up vis a vis China and Tibet, where Google tends to favor the Chinese government position. There have also been similar accusations of bias regarding Google News and what they choose to include.

In general I find Google no more trustworthy than Microsoft, and when it comes to inserting their political views they tend to be worse than Microsoft.

Concur Yr Announcement, caitlyn:

http://gus3.typepad.com/photos/googles_shame/googlesshame.ht...