Apparently Bing Is Something Of A Hit(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Apparently Bing Is Something Of A Hit
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/01/apparently-bing-is-something-of-a-hit/
16 comments
I've been using Bing as my default search in FF all day today, just as an experiment. I can't tell if what frustration I am experiencing is just due to not being used to it, but I will say that any other time I've tried doing this (Yahoo, Live, Ask), I've quickly switched back to Google simply because I couldn't get my work done. The fact that it's been more than an hour and I haven't given up on it says a lot.
I've been using Bing as my default search in FF all day today
I must admit I've just started to do the same and am getting the same result. I quickly added bing and its not sucking...
.. as someone who wrote off Microsoft only a few months ago and still on my "Fuck yeah, open source! Fuck Microsoft!" high, I'm feeling a little conflicted.
Well done Microsoft.
I must admit I've just started to do the same and am getting the same result. I quickly added bing and its not sucking...
.. as someone who wrote off Microsoft only a few months ago and still on my "Fuck yeah, open source! Fuck Microsoft!" high, I'm feeling a little conflicted.
Well done Microsoft.
Not to deliberately derail the thread or anything, but if you in any way associate using google search with promoting open-source, you are doing something wrong. Google search is (too) as proprietary as it gets.
As for bing, I gave it a shot. After switching to the US version it was a whole new product. My biggest complaint so far is the lack of intelligent porn-searches :P
As for bing, I gave it a shot. After switching to the US version it was a whole new product. My biggest complaint so far is the lack of intelligent porn-searches :P
The search is proprietary, but the company itself is one of (if not the) largest supporters of open source software out there. http://code.google.com/opensource/
Using Google for search makes Google money. Google reinvests a not-too-shabby amount of that money back into open source software. Ergo, using Google search promotes open source.
Using Google for search makes Google money. Google reinvests a not-too-shabby amount of that money back into open source software. Ergo, using Google search promotes open source.
Google also releases stuff by subsidizing them like crazy. Guess what happens to people who make better products? No one hears about them because all the techies are circle jerking themselves over the new Google product.
Sad, really.
Sad, really.
I'm pretty sure you're just talking out of your ass. Google has a long and storied history of releasing things to the sound of chirping crickets (Orkut, Froogle, Knol, Custom Search, etc.), and a lot of their services that aren't necessarily duds certainly aren't being circle-jerked over, either (Checkout, News, Finance, etc.)
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Well, you totally missed the point. Perhaps I should have made myself clearer
I recently switched from Windows to Linux after having become disillusioned with Microsoft's ability to ship a product that worked reasonably.
Therefore, the "yay open source, boo microsoft" sentiment was based off that.
Now, having tried the Windows 7 beta and now bing... I might have to rethink that position on MS's ability in software development.
(I just know someone will say "but they've just bought all that new search technology, Google is still better" or something similar... so to cut you off at the pass, Google also has acquisitions regarding search, so your argument will be invalid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_acquisitions)
I recently switched from Windows to Linux after having become disillusioned with Microsoft's ability to ship a product that worked reasonably.
Therefore, the "yay open source, boo microsoft" sentiment was based off that.
Now, having tried the Windows 7 beta and now bing... I might have to rethink that position on MS's ability in software development.
(I just know someone will say "but they've just bought all that new search technology, Google is still better" or something similar... so to cut you off at the pass, Google also has acquisitions regarding search, so your argument will be invalid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_acquisitions)
Going through that list is hilarious. It doesn't look like they've made any product from the ground up without buying something out.
That's the case with most big companies. They have one hit - the initial product that made them big in the first place - and a bunch of acquisitions. In some cases (Microsoft), their big hit was even an acquisition.
It's because most new products fail. Whether they're developed by a startup or a big company. But big companies have the luxury of a lot of cash that they can use to buy the products that are already successful. If you compare internal efforts that have to pass through Sturgeon's Law vs. acquired startups that have already passed the "successful" filter, of course the ones that are already successful will be more successful. It's a tautology. ;-)
Google is actually doing better than most big companies, with at least three internally-developed products that are big hits (Search, GMail, and Orkut).
It's because most new products fail. Whether they're developed by a startup or a big company. But big companies have the luxury of a lot of cash that they can use to buy the products that are already successful. If you compare internal efforts that have to pass through Sturgeon's Law vs. acquired startups that have already passed the "successful" filter, of course the ones that are already successful will be more successful. It's a tautology. ;-)
Google is actually doing better than most big companies, with at least three internally-developed products that are big hits (Search, GMail, and Orkut).
Maybe, but Google took some of their profits and invested in open source projects like Wave. Microsoft took the money they made and spent it on Vista and 7.
Or maybe they spent the cash on X360 and Natal.
Sometimes MS make some pretty damn good products.
Sometimes MS make some pretty damn good products.
Wave is not Open yet, it may never be.
What do you mean? The protocol documentation is already up, the api docs are already up, and they've promised to release their reference implementation. Are you just trolling?
Definitely not a bad option, but as Mr. Arrington says, "I’m used to Google and I know how to find the things I’m looking for."
I honestly cannot think of a time in the past year where Google has failed to locate sufficiently relevant information for a given query. If Google ever disappoints, I'll definitely fail over to Bing, but those days will be few and far between.
(And I do have a few presentation nits with Bing. I've seen a sponsored links block inserted ~250ms after the results rendered, immediately shifting the result positions and interrupting my skimming of the page. I can't open image results in tabs using Chrome, and their content wrapping for image results, Wikipedia pages, etc. feels a bit heavy-handed).
I honestly cannot think of a time in the past year where Google has failed to locate sufficiently relevant information for a given query. If Google ever disappoints, I'll definitely fail over to Bing, but those days will be few and far between.
(And I do have a few presentation nits with Bing. I've seen a sponsored links block inserted ~250ms after the results rendered, immediately shifting the result positions and interrupting my skimming of the page. I can't open image results in tabs using Chrome, and their content wrapping for image results, Wikipedia pages, etc. feels a bit heavy-handed).
To be honest, I've felt Google has been 'babying' me too much in the last year. I've had part of my queries dropped, different intent inferred and weird verb stemming applied to my searches. In the last 6 months there have been at least a dozen occasions where I've felt the results are total crap for no good reason.
(mind you, that's out of 15,000 searches according to my Google search history)
There's also the general problem of too many commercial pages when you're trying to get information, not a product. However Bing, et al, seems to suffer from the same thing.
(eg, try finding out information about the Shoreline Amphitheatre VIP lounge experience. There are sites out there which discuss it, but it took a ridiculous number of permutations of search terms to finally find them)
(mind you, that's out of 15,000 searches according to my Google search history)
There's also the general problem of too many commercial pages when you're trying to get information, not a product. However Bing, et al, seems to suffer from the same thing.
(eg, try finding out information about the Shoreline Amphitheatre VIP lounge experience. There are sites out there which discuss it, but it took a ridiculous number of permutations of search terms to finally find them)
Yes, one of the few major problems I have with Google is that it just changes your query sometimes when you really want what you typed, and the slight change (adding an "s", most often, for me) swamps the results you're looking for in a sea of unrelated stuff. Even using quotes doesn't help here, though it should. I'll try to remember to use Bing for those kinds of queries when I run into one again.
Did you try putting a + before the word? I think it tells Google "don't fuck with this word, I want an exact match"
Thanks! I always forget to use that, because its original use was only to force Google to keep common words in the search query.
I'm not so sure. Don't forget that IE has larger market share than the rest put together. There's a lot of ways MS could leverage their existing monopolies to bind search in. Maybe context searching from MS Office documents, putting a Bing search box on the Windows 7 taskbar...
If Bing is "good enough", then Google could have a big problem.
If Bing is "good enough", then Google could have a big problem.
There will be inevitable negatives comparisons to Google, and perhaps some of them are right. I'm just pleased it's working well enough for me and that there is finally now a viable competitor to Google.
Just wondering, why is it important to have a viable competitor to Google?
Are you worried about corporate shenanigans, or a single point of failure or something entirely else?
Are you worried about corporate shenanigans, or a single point of failure or something entirely else?
The danger of all monopolies. I'm not trying to troll or promote irrational fear, but I feel that the competition has been too weak.
The hegemony of a single organization which has a clearly stated philosophical viewpoint with a desire to index all information quite simply poses risks which others have described better than I can claim to. By diversifying those risks I hope we can reduce the potential problems.
I'm not saying that Microsoft is the antidote, just that I am glad to see competition. I hope there is more forthcoming.
The hegemony of a single organization which has a clearly stated philosophical viewpoint with a desire to index all information quite simply poses risks which others have described better than I can claim to. By diversifying those risks I hope we can reduce the potential problems.
I'm not saying that Microsoft is the antidote, just that I am glad to see competition. I hope there is more forthcoming.
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>Just wondering, why is it important to have a viable competitor to Google?
From an economic standpoint, it's probably most important to search engine advertisers.
From an economic standpoint, it's probably most important to search engine advertisers.
Try getting customer support with Adsense or Adwords (almost all of Google's money source). It'll suck or be non-existant. Oh...that is unless your in the 1% of top spenders.
i have to admit, it is surprisingly good. not better than google, but it presents itself as a quality alternative. several steps up from live.
given some more time to chisel away at it, MS might have something which could seriously compete with google in the future.
given some more time to chisel away at it, MS might have something which could seriously compete with google in the future.
The biggest thing for me, is that it did not feel like Microsoft made it, plus it felt faster. Google 3.7s, Bing 1.57s, and actually was. Although this could change depending on how well Bing is able to scale.
You get better results by choosing US mode. Compare for example the google wave query for US and Canada modes.
But even comparing US modes across both search engines shows Google to be better. For example, try scala tutorial, symbolic algebra system, and iphone app reviews.
But even comparing US modes across both search engines shows Google to be better. For example, try scala tutorial, symbolic algebra system, and iphone app reviews.
The results seem similar to Google. I wonder if PageRank litigation is a possibility.
(Sidenote: Google search is not just PageRank. Many of the recent changes to search require more than just a better popularity metric. Obvious things are things like better stemming or stop wording which are quite tricky to get right.)
possible, but that would be one hell of an epic court case. probably wouldn't even be worthwhile to try and jump into that. both sides would probably lose a lot, on multiple levels.
Yes, I was thinking PR. Odd fact: Yahoo appears to have a license for PageRank (Yahoo bought overture/goto, whose patent Google infringed with AdWords auction). GOOG-MS might cross-license too.
If you want to test Bing in Safari, try:
(Of course, you should read the code before running it.)
$ curl collison.ie/code/bing-safari-patch.rb | ruby
(Of course, you should read the code before running it.)
Or go get the glims safari extension so that you can add whatever search provider you want for the search box and also pick up a bunch of other neat safari tweaks (how I survived without the ability to undo a close tab I will never know... :)
"I don't know how to patch this version of Safari"
I'm using Safari version 4.0 (5530.17)
I'm using Safari version 4.0 (5530.17)
I was a little excited after reading the article, alas I was disappointed when I tried it out. Seems to do everything in its power to avoid displaying blogspot, google mail lists, and google code projects. It didnt display as much about me as when I searched my name on google - did not even have my blog which has my name in the DNS :( . When I searched for dojango I was very disapointed... "Results are included for django" could have been changed to "Results were replaced with this search that we think you meant"
To top things off, it seems to temporarily freeze my Ubuntu's installation of FF every time I move my mouse around the page.
The problem with new search engines is not only how good they are, but that google is _the_ standard. Every website who wants to be visible is google-optimised, so it will be hard for a contender to be both original and successful.
Bing seems to really like a few sites (Wikipedia, Amazon), but it's not quite up to Google search results.
PS: Some of the differences are just funny. Retric in Google = Hacker News profile, Retric in Bing = Slashdot Profile.
PS: Some of the differences are just funny. Retric in Google = Hacker News profile, Retric in Bing = Slashdot Profile.
PS: Some of the differences are just funny. Retric in Google = Hacker News profile, Retric in Bing = Slashdot Profile.
Slashdot has been around for over a decade. It has a PageRank of 9 versus 6 for HN. I would imagine Bing has a similar metric for measuring the popularity of a site. It seems to make sense that the Slashdot profile would rank higher.
What I think is really interesting is why Google ranked the HN profile higher. I'm thinking freshness is weighted much higher on Google than it is on Bing. I've done similar searches on both and while both yield relevant results I'm more likely to see older content on Bing.
Slashdot has been around for over a decade. It has a PageRank of 9 versus 6 for HN. I would imagine Bing has a similar metric for measuring the popularity of a site. It seems to make sense that the Slashdot profile would rank higher.
What I think is really interesting is why Google ranked the HN profile higher. I'm thinking freshness is weighted much higher on Google than it is on Bing. I've done similar searches on both and while both yield relevant results I'm more likely to see older content on Bing.
Nice point that there is a little google lock-in, when people have learnt how to find things with google. It's not just the query syntax, but also that we've learnt what kinds of answers it gets back.
Thinking further: lock-in doesn't give you much competitive advantage in comp tech - but it does grant you a buffer against competitors. It buys you time, to match their improvement, or even improve on them. Therefore, in tech, I think competitive advantage should be measured in time * : our good image gives us 1 week; user inertia is 1 year; adapting to another interface is 3 weeks; our server farm speed is 6 months; PageRank is 2 months.
These times only come into play when a competitor offers something better in some way (if there's nothing better, then these timers aren't engaged). It's like a better product is a pressure or voltage differential, and the competitive advantage is the resistance.
Of course, when you're ahead is the time to grow your competitive advantage, even though it's not needed, so that you have it when it is needed. It's an investment. The parts of the model are: the users you have; the relative attractiveness of a competing product; and what stops your users from switching.
Actually, I think this is just one kind of competitive advantage, and it only covers existing users (not new ones). For a start up, it's not enough to just retain users, you need to get them in the first place. You're better off focusing on getting them (by increasing the relative attractiveness of your product) rather than stopping them from switching... but Warren Buffett is always going on about competitive advantage - what exactly does he mean?
[ * ] for half their users to switch
These times only come into play when a competitor offers something better in some way (if there's nothing better, then these timers aren't engaged). It's like a better product is a pressure or voltage differential, and the competitive advantage is the resistance.
Of course, when you're ahead is the time to grow your competitive advantage, even though it's not needed, so that you have it when it is needed. It's an investment. The parts of the model are: the users you have; the relative attractiveness of a competing product; and what stops your users from switching.
Actually, I think this is just one kind of competitive advantage, and it only covers existing users (not new ones). For a start up, it's not enough to just retain users, you need to get them in the first place. You're better off focusing on getting them (by increasing the relative attractiveness of your product) rather than stopping them from switching... but Warren Buffett is always going on about competitive advantage - what exactly does he mean?
[ * ] for half their users to switch
I like Bing. It does a much better job for image search and presentation than Google.
The thing that will make Bing competitive with Google, however, will be the front page. Google has adhered to a simple front page with religious zealotry. Bing, on the other hand, seems to embrace making the front search page more useful. It remains to be seen if MS will clutter it up, but if Google starts adding widgets and tools to the front page, you will know they are paying attention.
The thing that will make Bing competitive with Google, however, will be the front page. Google has adhered to a simple front page with religious zealotry. Bing, on the other hand, seems to embrace making the front search page more useful. It remains to be seen if MS will clutter it up, but if Google starts adding widgets and tools to the front page, you will know they are paying attention.
I didn't like the search results. It tries to guess on what you want, and as a techie i guess i'm more used to specifying myself what i want to search.
Would you like them better if the Google logo were floating at the top of the page?
I was refering to actual search results, for the same search, with comparison from both search engines. I might be totally wrong, and the issue is in a good part subjective. That's why i did put the words "I didn't like", and not "The results are plain bad".
Implying i was just influenced by the brand, while it may have seemed clever to you, is rude , gross ,and totally unrelated to what i said.
Implying i was just influenced by the brand, while it may have seemed clever to you, is rude , gross ,and totally unrelated to what i said.
> It tries to guess on what you want
Unfortunately, Google is far worse in that respect. I've had occassions where my search query was automatically "corrected" to search for the exact opposite of what I want. Not too worrisome, if it weren't for the annoying fact that the only way to notice that was by finding (!) a note in normal font at the bottom of the page.
That happened a bit too often. I'm now a Yahoo Search user.
Unfortunately, Google is far worse in that respect. I've had occassions where my search query was automatically "corrected" to search for the exact opposite of what I want. Not too worrisome, if it weren't for the annoying fact that the only way to notice that was by finding (!) a note in normal font at the bottom of the page.
That happened a bit too often. I'm now a Yahoo Search user.
I get quite a few people coming to my blog about this issue, and emailing me because Google is so hopeless for this one particular query: http://www.cederman.com/?p=133
I feel like I'm starting to spam this, but check this out if you don't like the results, it makes it look more Googly and does the trick for me: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/50649
I like the preview of the content when you hover over the result. It's interesting that Wikipedia pages can be viewed as pages on Bing.com. I think that's a feature that came from Powerset.
It's a reasonable competitor to Google, but I was hoping for a feature or two that would really impress me. Everything I see so far is an incremental improvement at best.
It's a reasonable competitor to Google, but I was hoping for a feature or two that would really impress me. Everything I see so far is an incremental improvement at best.
Personally I'm still enamored with WolframAlpha, though Bing has a distinct edge in ease of typing=).
I realize that (for now) these sites are apples to oranges, but I would welcome any move by Microsoft/Google to take on Wolfram. Perhaps Bing will go this way? They have a lot of smart filtering, and the endless image search is just fun.
I realize that (for now) these sites are apples to oranges, but I would welcome any move by Microsoft/Google to take on Wolfram. Perhaps Bing will go this way? They have a lot of smart filtering, and the endless image search is just fun.
I'm happy with it - my site comes in at #8 on it, instead of #10 on Google for my target keywords "etf screener". Besides that though it does exceed my expectations.
uuuh...guys? I think Bing might be better than Google....what do I do?
Meanwhile Windows continues to rot away; Remind me why they need to be so into search again?