Bing, Not MSN, Not Live, BING!

Each day I check my newsletter s and tweets, of late all I read is
“bing” this and “bing” that, initially I thought i was receiving a
barrage of text messages from my phone (yeah, it makes a “bing” sound
when I get a new sms). Instead everyone is talking about the new search
engine released by Microsoft, BING.

Yeah, they have released another engine with another brand, noooo not MSN or Live it’s now BING! How many names can you give a search engine?
The first question I asked myself is, why choose a name like Bing? I’m yet to find out the real answer to this though could it be “But It’s Not Google”?  (If anyone does know please post a comment below)

Looking at BING it seems to have moved away from the traditional “simple” look and feel of Google and other engines, greeting you with a pretty picture of some faraway exotic destination, reminding you, yes you are in the office and NOT on holiday (thanks Microsoft).

(A side note; at this point I’d lost my connection with BING, I’m guessing BING has gone bung. The site came back up about two hours later, not a good start)

There are a couple of features that I feel are note worthy, making it “easier” to find what you’re looking for and possibly keeping you on the site and driving more traffic to a greater share of WebPages.

The related searches section found on the left hand side of the screen is handy if you’re kinda finding what you want but could to with a push in a certain direction.
Let’s say you’re searching for a movie, a favourite of mine is Top Gun (yes, and also have a soft spot for Days of Thunder). The organic listing is full of pages about the movie, on the left hand side there’s a variety of options relating to the search, sound bites, quotes etc very handy.

The other feature worthy of a mention is the fly out stuff next to each organic listing. This fly out info seems to contain META data and where possible other links within the site i.e. contact us page, about page’s and even a email address. This is akin to the Google site links found in the natural search results.

Now, this “flyout” feature is great BUT, who of the MSN/LIVE/BING audience will use this or even know about it? Apart from that, I think they’re on the right track to a great new looking search engine. I don’t think it’s going to rival Google but it will (once up and running again) be a welcome change for all the current LIVE/MSN users – hopefully giving them a greater reach and much better searching experience.

On that note, I’m off to book a holiday somewhere on the off chance that I may be captured in a picture that they’re using on Bing.