Things That Go Bing

Microsoft has been flailing around in the search space for years. It built up the horribly named MSN Live Search into an also-ran, tried to buy Yahoo and bad-mouthed Google every chance it got. Now Microsoft has a new approach -- a built-from-scratch engine with a name that could either be the dumbest idea ever or could actually catch on. Bing was launched late last week.

I gave Bing a two-minute spin this morning, putting it through the old "Doug Barney" test in which I searched for my name. The results were pretty good. But basic search results are just the beginning of this new engine. The real plan, similar to the recently launched Wolfram search engine, is to provide richer results, such as helping one find a vendor, track down an illness or pick a product.

Have you tried Bing or Wolfram? If so, send your results to dbarney@redmondmag.com.

Meanwhile, it looks like Yahoo would still happily sell its search, but it would take "boatloads of money." Good luck with all that!

Posted by Doug Barney on June 01, 2009 at 11:53 AM