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Bing Is Live

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Re: Bing Is Live

#91

Post by jimbokun »

axod wrote: post #41
encoderer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually... i took it thru some paces... search some obscure mysql error messages, python function names, my name, unit conversions, etc.. The results are exactly what I expect, as good (or nearly so) as Google. The only exception being advanced query syntax: wildcards in phrases, the ".." range operator, etc. But that's something I can forgive on day 1...

You don't win by being nearly as good as your competitor though.

Microsoft has done exactly this several times. They won through superior business models, which made nearly as good better for their purposes. (Unless, of course, you include the business model as part of being better than the competition, in which case your statement is trivially true.)

I don't know if Microsoft has ideas for beating Google in the business model arena, but I wouldn't put it past them.

Re: Bing Is Live

#92

Post by sp332 »

prakash wrote: post #84
pg wrote: post #4

Too noisy. With all the extraneous stuff on the page, I keep misreading the name as Bling. Fast though. At least they understand that much about why Google won. It's funny to think that after all the engineering expertise that must have gone into this, they're going to lose because of UI design.

Fast though. At least they understand that much about why Google won. MS is using Akamai as the CDN to deliver search results, hence it is fast.

So does Google. Or was that your point?

Re: Bing Is Live

#93

Post by aneesh »

iamelgringo wrote: post #80

Wow. I just spent the last hour noodling around for different stuff, searching for air fares, doing some shopping on Bing. It's actually really pretty nice. Thoughts: Bing shopping is much better than Froogle ever was. They are pushing the "cash back" program pretty hard, and it will probably gain some traction. Bing Video really doesn't show much YouTube content. That gives a bunch different search results, which is…

The funny thing is, most of this stuff isn't new. The integration is just better.

Cashback launched about a year ago, and has been integrated into the product search for months.

Infinite scroll on images is nice too, but that's been there as long as I can remember.

Farecast (the airfare search engine) was acquired by Microsoft a while back, and was part of Live.

Re: Bing Is Live

#94

Post by mattmaroon »

iamelgringo wrote: post #80

Wow. I just spent the last hour noodling around for different stuff, searching for air fares, doing some shopping on Bing. It's actually really pretty nice. Thoughts: Bing shopping is much better than Froogle ever was. They are pushing the "cash back" program pretty hard, and it will probably gain some traction. Bing Video really doesn't show much YouTube content. That gives a bunch different search results, which is…

Froogle (now Google Shopping) has been a tremendous disappointment for so long. You're right, this Bing shopping is considerably better. I was trying to find Red Wings jerseys last night on Google and it was brutal.

Re: Bing Is Live

#95

Post by czstrong »

I really like the bird's eye view that they offer with their maps. It is much more detailed and usable than the normal satellite view. You can rotate the view 90 degrees to get 4 different angles of the location and it zooms in close.

Re: Bing Is Live

#96

Post by prakash »

sp332 wrote: post #92
prakash wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fast though. At least they understand that much about why Google won. MS is using Akamai as the CDN to deliver search results, hence it is fast.

So does Google. Or was that your point?

google doesn't. You tube might use CDN's though.

Re: Bing Is Live

#97

Post by dschobel »

It's fast enough and the results are good enough that I made it my default search engine for the day. This is no small feat, most of the new engines (Cuil, et al) don't get this far.

------------------------

My 90 second road-test

I actually prefer the search results UI to google's. It's clean and I'm really digging the smart side-bars.

1a. A search for "python" yields a sidebar with sections for "Overview, Community, Software, Development"

1b. Google gives me a list of results

2a. "Zurich" yields a sidebar with "Weather, Map, Real Estate, Travel, Restaurants"

2b. Google gives me an embedded map, and then a list of results.

------------------------

It's a small difference which obviously Google could replicate but at this point in search, the results from all the big players seem to be converging at "very good" so UI is really the only place to innovate anymore and I have to give it to MS on this one.

We'll see how it holds up to daily use but so far, I'm quite impressed.

Re: Bing Is Live

#98

Post by doug_m »

iamelgringo wrote: post #80

Wow. I just spent the last hour noodling around for different stuff, searching for air fares, doing some shopping on Bing. It's actually really pretty nice. Thoughts: Bing shopping is much better than Froogle ever was. They are pushing the "cash back" program pretty hard, and it will probably gain some traction. Bing Video really doesn't show much YouTube content. That gives a bunch different search results, which is…

In the UK we're just getting redirected to ciao.co.uk, here's a link for reference that shows a screenshot of the shopping pages they're seeing in the US - http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/microsofts-bing-hides...

If anyone has anything that shows it more thoroughly I'd like to see it?

Re: Bing Is Live

#99

Post by jsonscripter »

lucumo wrote: post #86
pg wrote: post #4

Too noisy. With all the extraneous stuff on the page, I keep misreading the name as Bling. Fast though. At least they understand that much about why Google won. It's funny to think that after all the engineering expertise that must have gone into this, they're going to lose because of UI design.

I personally like the way they integrated the "advanced" search box in the results page. It actually makes it easy to do an advanced search. Neither Yahoo nor Google has this. Combined with the impressive speed, I think it stands a chance.

Bing makes the advanced search "clickable" but always in your face.

Google gives you the advanced search options pane, and then shows you how to format your search query so you can create the advanced search on-the-fly next time (such as by adding -, +, quotes and the like), as they see the command-line interface to their search as superior.

Re: Bing Is Live

#100

Post by randomtask »

thorax wrote: post #83
randomtask wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I type es_msg into Google I too get the "did you mean" link, but the top result is the same as the Bing result. Yes, Bing does feel really fast, but it's not like I've often felt like I was waiting too long for a Google result.

I mean the "Did you mean" top two results-- it gives me two results about "tos_msg" which are useless for the particular query and mess me up pretty much every day on other queries.

Ah, I didn't get those. Fair enough.
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