Bing: A One Month Review
Jul 20
Wondering how MS’s new search engine Bing has been doing in the month since it launched? Okay, well just pretend that you are…
A not-so-surprising report from J.P. Morgan tells us that the search engine is having trouble swaying people away from their usual search habits. No shocker there, it’s only a month old, and old habits/homepages/installed search toolbars are hard to break. But here are a few interesting highlights from the study:
- 59% of respondents had heard of Bing. Of that group, only 42% had tried it.
- Of the group that had tried Bing, 61% used it five times or less in June, which seems to suggest that people were interested in test driving it, but not making a permanent change.
- Interestingly, the people who gave Bing a try were primarily users of Ask and AOL, not Yahoo or Google. Only 10.6 % of surveyed Google users gave Bing a shot, whereas 25.8% of AOL users were willing to consider jumping ship. And really, if you wake up and find yourself using AOL, you should jump ship. Jump into any waters. Anywhere. Save yourself now…
- Despite the fact that the buzz around Bing (how many onomatopoeias can you use in one sentence?) was focused on design and reorganization of content, the interface was not what turned people on the most. 38.3% of surveyed Bing testers said that the relevance of the results was the greatest strength of Bing. Which validates what Google and search engine users have been saying all along…It’s relevancy that matters.
These are some important facts to think about, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel on Bing yet. I for one love to see competition in the search market because it drives innovation and in general, just makes things more fun and interesting. One important challenge that this study points out is that most people are unwilling to switch search engines simply because they are happy. 63% said they saw no weakness in their current search experience. It’s going to take some serious innovation powerful marketing to cause a breakup in search relationships for people who are already satisfied with their search experience.
Jul 29 at 13:27
Will it be YaBing or Binghoo??? Microsoft, at long last, partners with Yahoo to take on Google.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009559321_apusmicrosoftyahoo11thldwritethru.html
Jul 29 at 14:49
Scott, I predict “binghoo.” Actually I predict “Bing…who?”
Jul 31 at 08:49
Choice, Value, Innovation is the theme they’re going with. I think “binghoo” would’ve been catchier.
http://choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/Default.aspx
Aug 06 at 10:44
I don’t know, I like what I see so far with Bing. I was one of those users who did a few searches and then drifted back to Google, but, now I find I like many of the features on Bing. I especially like the fact that I can mouse over the little orange button that appears next to all the results for more info on that page.
I also like the idea of being able to navigate to various pages of a site right from within the search results. “Bing” something like ‘landscaping’ and under the top result you can click on any of a number of pages.
So I like much of what Bing has to offer. That is, until Google buys Microsoft, and Yahoo, and Bing.
Aug 06 at 11:03
Well… Google has sitelinks too. If you Google “landscaping” you’ll also get multiple page listings for one search result. However, those type of results aren’t available for every search in Bing or Google since only select sites have “sitelinks.” It’s interesting though that you noticed them on Bing and not Google.
I do like the orange button for some things, like Wikipedia results, since I can often find the answer I’m looking for without having to click thru to the Wiki page.