Microsoft’s “Bing” Search Engine Isn’t So New After All…

Jun 4, 2009 by Matt | Posted in Services and Tools 5 Comments

Microsoft recently launched their new search engine “Bing,” in an attempt to compete in the arena that Google has pretty much already won. There was a bit of talk leading up to the relatively quiet launch, which promptly disappointed me.

Microsoft Bing

I had been hoping that Microsoft would help create some more competition in the search space, but it doesn’t look like anything has changed.

The design looks virtually the same as the old Live Search (Live.com now redirects to Bing) and the results seem pretty much the same.

It seems like Microsoft just bought a new domain, made a new logo, and drummed-up some publicity. I can’t necessarily know that for a fact, but it seems to be the case to me.

  • http://denzuko.wordpress.com Dwight Spencer

    Go figure, this is the same thing they always do; "lets rebrand windows 7 from vista which is really Longhorne, just like we did with ME, 98 and 95. Oh and while at it Apple and Linux have so much better systems lets make ours look like that but only in the M$ _way. After all we've been doing it since DOS!!"

    Truely what's to stop them this time?!? Really, we need to stop with them entirely, it was old and drawn out ten years ago and I for one, imho, and sick of this game.

    Denzuko – denzuko.wordpress.com

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/joshgard joshgard

    I had been using Live.com as my primary search engine on my Windows 7 laptop and Google on my MacBook Pro. They are both good search engines, and for the most part return the same results. Each has differences, and I'd use one over the other for different types of searches. But all in all, I had no preference of one over the other.

    With this name change to "Bing", I've now switched my Win7 system to use Google. Why? Because at least with "Live" I felt like I was using a serious search engine, backed by a serious company. "Bing" sounds childish, immature, and unprofessional. I don't see myself standing in front of a conference room giving a presentation and recommended to people that they "go to Bing and search".

    The search results may be the same as when it was Live.com, but I think this name change was silly and unprofessional. Everyone has their own opinion, and I respect that. Perhaps others think that Bing will draw people from Google or other search engines. That's fine. However, Microsoft lost me to Google for all my search needs, simply because of a silly marketing tactic.

    Everyone enjoy "Binging" your searches, I'll be "Googling"! :)

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/redwall_hp redwall_hp

      Yeah, I don't see how changing their name is going to draw more users. All it's doing is diluting their already week brand. I've been using Google for years, and am unlikely to change, even if a far superior competitor appeared, simply because I'm in the habit of using Google.

  • http://ineeddiscipline.com/2008/07/04/19-blog-review-networks/ Dean Saliba

    I did not even know this was part of Microsoft, I thought it was something Google were doing. And I only knew about it because a couple of blogs mentioned it.

    Not good if they want to challenge Google.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/redwall_hp redwall_hp

      "I did not even know this was part of Microsoft, I thought it was something Google were doing."

      It's nice to know Microsoft's publicity attempts work. :D