 That’s the noise it makes? “Bing?” |
Microsoft’s expected unveiling of a new search engine next week will be accompanied by a massive ad campaign that won’t mention Google and Yahoo by name but will ask if you’re happy with the results you get from competing services, AdAge reports.
The search engine will be named “Bing” which raises an obvious question: will an ad campaign said to be upwards of $100 million ever get anybody to say “Just Bing it”?
Google has about 65% of the search market share, and Yahoo about 20%. Microsoft in in the single digits. But so strategic is search, and so tied is it to ad-supported services that will only grow in importance with the increased use of cloud-computing — where your data is readily available to the people whose services you are using — and so deep are Microsoft’s pockets that even $100 million to move the needle a bit would seem to be worth the effort. Indeed, the Redmond, Washington software giant was willing to spend more than $30 billion to acquire Yahoo mainly to acquire its relatively better search prowess.
I know Microsoft has jillions of dollars and thousands of coders. You have to wonder how long they will bumble along burning up these enormous pyres of money – as an alternative to designing and marketing truly useful products?
The quality or usefullness of the product really isn’t a factor. M$ specializes, not by competing at an end user level, but by dominating a market. In this case I imagine they’ll try to incorporate Bing directly into Windows and IE, and they’ll probrably find other ways to integrate Bing into their other applications. Add to that their legal department will be watching the competition to initiate as much legal action as possible. I’m sure they’ll have other strategies but producing the best service won’t necessarily be a top priority.
I remember windows 95 and the birth of MSN. M$ has always had the hots to control the online community. Let’s hope they’re still just as clueless.
I bet “Bing” will be as popular as the “Zune”.
Is someone actually running that company?
That company has a severe identity crisis.
When they supposedly went into search in 2004, I went to their search page and it was clear they were trying to copy Google’s style and I thought it was terribly lame.
@#21
Dude, it ain’t 1995 any more.
I can’t even name any new venture that Microsoft has done this decade except possibly the XBox but I’m sure not impressed by the number of units shipped.
Can you?
MikeN, the search engine is “fine” – and yes I’ve used it a lot. It’s image search capabilities are excellent, but it’s page searches rank a little weirdly.
But the name is, well, goofy. I went to Lord Byng and I can’t tell you the number of jokes we made. Just common sense on the name.
The problem is that they are trying to catch up to Google, act like Google, be hip like Google, etc. They need to do something different or own a market section and grow from there.
Microsoft is about as hip Fred MacMurray. It sucks being a dinosaur when the big asteroid hits.
It is good to have competition even if it is Microsoft doing the competing. Bing it on!
“Just ‘Bing®’ it” sucks.
“Bing” this!
Microsoft’s website is horrible to use.
The best way to search their site is to “google it” with site:microsoft.com
If their website makes it difficult to find the information I want, why would I go to them to search other sites?
Why not Bang?
“Just bang it!”
“Just bang her!”
“Just bang him!”
Microsoft, the Barry Manilow of IT.
They cant do search for shit, their partner website makes as much sense as Alfred1, their marketing department has more clowns in it than Barnum and Bailey and windows mobile is a laughing stock (cant wait to see their app store).
They better get Windows 7 right or they are is deep doo doo.
The usual Dvorak drivel. D does not even look at what Microsoft does, he just assumes it is bad. When will you actually do some journalism and report acurately? It doesn’t matter mind you. Microsoft continues to innovate and surprise the market. Bing rocks!
Anything that installs itself and then makes it so hard to get it off your
computer is a VIRUS and Bing is that. With out a by your leave I woke up
with Bing as my Firefox address bar search engine and can not find away to
remove it. Microsoft has become a HACKER site. Generating Trojan search
hijacker programs and distributing it with MSN, Hotmail, and their messenger
application. Death to Microsoft. All should rise up and uninstall as much
Microsoft software as you can live without.