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Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

myprasanna.posterous.com

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Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#121

Post by Semiapies »

myprasanna wrote: post #120
shadowmatter wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an ex-Googler, and I disagree. Before I left the GWS team ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/29/google_web_server/ ) became a model for how frequent, stable releases should be done within the company. That's all I'll say.

I've just recently spoken with my friends, and I know for a fact that it atleast takes a month from point of checkin to review/test/stage/production. If you disagree, I think what you are talking about, is probably an exception and not the norm. Being secretive about release cycles is pointless stealth.

What else do you "know for a fact"?

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#122

Post by brudgers »

wrs wrote: post #108
brudgers wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I don't know that Bing has "failed" yet, but I highly doubt it'll be anything other than one amongst many in the pack in 5 years." For Microsoft, having a full featured reliable non-core product with measurable market share is a success because it allows Microsoft to offer vertical integration without the specter of anti-trust allegations - imagine the howling in DC and Europe if Bing controlled 70% of search (nev…

I'm afraid you're moving the goal posts a bit. When I was at Microsoft I saw a lot of presentations about how the advertising industry was much bigger than the software industry, and how MS needed to tap into that growth opportunity in a big way. I saw very few presentations about how a modest search market share would keep infrastructure costs lower.

I believe you are mis-characterizing my position somewhat - I stated that lower infrastructure costs are a benefit of smaller scale but I did not state that they were the sole measure of success.

While I don't doubt that powerpoints about quick easy money from advertising were legion in Redmond, it doesn't change my belief that Bing has been a significant success for Microsoft despite the money being neither quick nor easy. The notion of measuring the success of the Bing team against the whole of Google is silly. Bing's success should be measured solely by the business benefits it provides to Microsoft.

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#123

Post by ghshephard »

brudgers wrote: post #122
wrs wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid you're moving the goal posts a bit. When I was at Microsoft I saw a lot of presentations about how the advertising industry was much bigger than the software industry, and how MS needed to tap into that growth opportunity in a big way. I saw very few presentations about how a modest search market share would keep infrastructure costs lower.

I believe you are mis-characterizing my position somewhat - I stated that lower infrastructure costs are a benefit of smaller scale but I did not state that they were the sole measure of success. While I don't doubt that powerpoints about quick easy money from advertising were legion in Redmond, it doesn't change my belief that Bing has been a significant success for Microsoft despite the money being neither quick no…

"I stated that lower infrastructure costs are a benefit of smaller scale"

I find this statement confusing. Perhaps in terms of absolute numbers, infrastructure costs are less at smaller scale, but as a percentage of revenue, larger scale usually shows increased infrastructure leverage, until you get to Microsoft/Google/Facebook size, and start designing your own Servers, Power Supplies, Storage, etc...

It's completely reasonable to compare companies against each other to determine their success - particularly when being the leader gives you network-effect benefits.

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#124

Post by sbochins »

raganwald wrote: post #12

Perhaps a bit OT, but... The post seemed to be riddled with formatting and grammar errors. This rubbed my old-school English sensibilities at first, but then I began to enjoy its rough feel. After all, it's a post about how people who worked tirelessly to bring a product to market were shipping things while the rest of Microsoft slept. The story very clearly describes a dichotomy in Microsoft's culture between proces…

I don't see how the grammatical errors could have arose simply from writing a rough first draft of a blog post. It seems like the writer has little experience in the way of English grammar.

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#125

Post by brudgers »

ghshephard wrote: post #123
brudgers wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are mis-characterizing my position somewhat - I stated that lower infrastructure costs are a benefit of smaller scale but I did not state that they were the sole measure of success. While I don't doubt that powerpoints about quick easy money from advertising were legion in Redmond, it doesn't change my belief that Bing has been a significant success for Microsoft despite the money being neither quick no…

"I stated that lower infrastructure costs are a benefit of smaller scale" I find this statement confusing. Perhaps in terms of absolute numbers, infrastructure costs are less at smaller scale, but as a percentage of revenue, larger scale usually shows increased infrastructure leverage, until you get to Microsoft/Google/Facebook size, and start designing your own Servers, Power Supplies, Storage, etc... It's completel…

Measuring costs with actual dollars rather than percentage signs is often the best way to judge the bottom line. Yes, relative infrastructure cost tend to go down at a larger scale - assuming that revenues increase in proportion to the infrastructure added, which may not necessarily be the case with Bing and advertising.

It is also important to acknowledge the opportunity costs for Microsoft that scaling Bing might entail, e.g. is infrastructure more profitably used for cloud services or search? Does an advertising revenue model interfere with the necessary trust which underpins Microsoft's business relationships with enterprise customers?

I am not saying it is unreasonable to compare Microsoft with Google at the corporate level - but using Bing and Google Search as the primary criterion for such a comparison is a category mistake.

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#126

Post by mredbord »

Cossolus wrote: post #66
mredbord wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course more market share is good. But Microsoft is not purely interested in growing share with Bing; non-differentiation with Google is a good thing in and of itself. The less differentiated Microsoft is from Google, the greater perception of their platform having feature parity with Google. That way consumers are not forced to choose based on features, just ecosystem. This is a the reason that Microsoft is a fast…

Microsoft used to be able to "embrace and extend" in order to extinguish the competitor. With Bing it seems they can only "embrace", by which I mean copying and trying to decrease differentiation. But look at the trend. In the future, when/if Google search incorporates social feedback effects (ala +1), Bing won't even have the user-base to be able to copy the competitor, let alone extend and extinguish. One look at m…

I'm not completely convinced that Bing lacks the user base to compete with Google. There are diminishing returns in user base volume after some point, and Bing has around 100mm US users[1]. I think any of us would be pleased as punch with that volume and it's not clear it's not enough to do something-social-with-search.

[1] http://blog.compete.com/2011/03/16/february-2011-search-mark...

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#127

Post by redthrowaway »

jules wrote: post #117
redthrowaway wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not opposed to it because I think it wouldn't keep bad posters off, I'm opposed to it because it would keep most posters off. It's arrogant and self-righteous. "Sorry, you have to prove you're good enough to post on our holy news aggregator." It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and it's the last thing this community needs.

So you're saying that the current method of silencing those people without even notifying them is preferred? They keep posting and most times their posts add value. Yet these posts are invisible to users without the showdead option on.

The karma metric is pretty transparent. You learn very quickly which comments are and are not appreciated. Dropping a friendly comment to someone you see who hasn't caught on yet works, as well.

What do you think the likes of a Matt Cutts would do if they were trying to sign up for HN and the site forced them to say whether "LOL" was an appropriate comment before allowing them to post? It's insulting and arrogant and will drive away the kind of people we want posting here. All that for a "problem" that is invisible the vast majority of the time.

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#128

Post by jules »

redthrowaway wrote: post #127
jules wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that the current method of silencing those people without even notifying them is preferred? They keep posting and most times their posts add value. Yet these posts are invisible to users without the showdead option on.

The karma metric is pretty transparent. You learn very quickly which comments are and are not appreciated. Dropping a friendly comment to someone you see who hasn't caught on yet works, as well. What do you think the likes of a Matt Cutts would do if they were trying to sign up for HN and the site forced them to say whether "LOL" was an appropriate comment before allowing them to post? It's insulting and arrogant and…

Stopping famous people from signing up is a good point.

On the other hand the system is clearly broken now.

> The karma metric is pretty transparent. You learn very quickly which comments are and are not appreciated. Dropping a friendly comment to someone you see who hasn't caught on yet works, as well.

This is not the case as it is currently implemented. If one of your first comments gets downvoted you get hellbanned. There is no chance to learn from your mistakes. Dropping a friendly comment doesn't work either because you cannot respond to hellbanned people. Do you have showdead on? Try it and you'll probably see that about half of the hellbanned people still posting invisible comments are legitimate. For example you will find 3 of those people commenting on this post, two of them having no idea that nobody is reading their comments.

For example look at http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=bshock

This guy has been banned for 2 downvoted comments and has been posting legitimate but invisible comments for over a year. You can clearly see the learning effects: his first couple of comments are not HN quality. Unfortunately by the time he got accustomed to HN he had been silenced.

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#129

Post by redthrowaway »

jules wrote: post #128
redthrowaway wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The karma metric is pretty transparent. You learn very quickly which comments are and are not appreciated. Dropping a friendly comment to someone you see who hasn't caught on yet works, as well. What do you think the likes of a Matt Cutts would do if they were trying to sign up for HN and the site forced them to say whether "LOL" was an appropriate comment before allowing them to post? It's insulting and arrogant and…

Stopping famous people from signing up is a good point. On the other hand the system is clearly broken now. > The karma metric is pretty transparent. You learn very quickly which comments are and are not appreciated. Dropping a friendly comment to someone you see who hasn't caught on yet works, as well. This is not the case as it is currently implemented. If one of your first comments gets downvoted you get hellbanne…

I think we can fix hellbanning without too much tinkering. Perhaps a simple notice if someone's first posts are downvoted advising them to check the submissions and comments guidelines, perhaps with some common first time mistakes and their more preferable counterparts added. That should help the noobs while still allowing trolls to be banned.

Re: Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing

#130

Post by code_duck »

cdesmar wrote: post #62
code_duck wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpredictability is progress?

Returning meaningful results is progress. Why would you want a predictably wrong answer, you must be a manager.

Actually, you've plotted two data points here. That doesn't tell you much.

How do you know it doesn't go back to showing irrelevant results on the 28th?

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