Several alternate search engines have cropped up over the last couple of years, but every time I’ve been certain that they didn’t really pose a threat to Google. These alternatives might offer an interesting interface, but poor quality of results — like Cuil. Or they work so differently that they’re not really Google competitors — like Wolfram|Alpha.
When Microsoft first launched Bing, I was just about to dismiss it as another “also ran” search engine. But then the reviews came it saying that Bing is pretty good. Actually, really good. And some mainstream tech pundits (TechCrunch) wondered if Bing could be a real Google challenger.
So I’ve been trying it out over the last couple of days, and my verdict is that it’s fine. It’s a perfectly good search engine, and if there was no other competition, most people would be very happy with it. The only real problem is battling Google’s mindshare. It turns out that some research data backs this up.
The Catalyst Group tested Google and Bing with 12 users, including focus group and eye tracking studies. They found that people preferred Bing over Google in a lot of ways, but ultimately they preferred Google because it’s familiar. This is how The Catalyst Group and TechCrunch sum it up:
Catalyst CEO Nick Gould concludes that Microsoft “created something as good as Google and that is not good enough.” Overall, the test subjects “were not swayed.” No wonder Microsoft is spending up to $100 million on Bing marketing.
Be sure to check out the chart on TechCrunch to get a good idea of how people rated both search engines.
That’s why this video from CollegeHumor is so funny. In a way, this is how Bing really should advertise.
Have you tried Bing? And if so, would you switch?
August 18th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I read this post back when it was first posted (thank you for the insight Jeff) and was curious as to the hype between Bing and Google, so I checked it out for myself.
I first started by switching out all the primary search boxes in Firefox from Google to Bing, this would force me to use it on a daily basis since this particular search box is my primary source to the web.
Then I made it a habit to use this search box for all searches either keywords, address and directions, and specific websites.
Now being over a month later I can say I am happily still using Bing and have not bothered to switch back to Google. I will confess I do use Google from time to time still but that is only because I do not “Bing” for things yet, I still “Google” for everything. If my Firefox search box is not near by, I quickly type in “google.com” in the address bar and shoot off searches that way.
I enjoy Bing for many reasons.
1) It is not crawling with websites that have “figured out” their web crawlers, I feel I am getting search results closer to needs.
2) Check out Bing’s directions and map capabilities, there are subtle differences that make it useful and more fun. Like at the end of your driving directions it provides information as to when you may have traveled to far and need to turn around “If you reach Elm St, you have gone too far!”
3) The image search has incorporated a lot of additional features that are only available to Google Image Search through Firefox and it’s greasemonkey extensions. A big 10 to fun factor, ease of use, and time saving.
I see where the “familiarity” factor comes in, similar to why people are cautious to switch from XP to Vista and why it feels weird driving a truck for 10 years than being told to switch to a sedan for economical reasons, that truck was your life.
Ok now this all may come from a biased perspective too. Working in technology and gadgets, and enjoying the rapid change of the software I work with, may give me an advantage to accepting changes like Bing. I will admit I too appreciate the advances on the Zune in comparison to the iPod. Maybe it is not so bad that Microsoft feeds off others’ successes and are not as innovative, but isn’t that too what drives Apple, Google and other competition to continue to evolve? I don’t think Microsoft gets enough credit where it is due.
I suggest that everyone checks out Bing and give it a month test drive. You may not decide to switch over completely, I haven’t either, but you will not be served disappointed.