Sciencetext Tips & Tricks

Tech talk, social media, blogging, computing tips and tricks

Bing Is Not Google

May 29th, 2009 · by David Bradley >> 20 Comments

Bing. It’s not the most likely name for a search engine, but then who’d have thought in the early 1990s that a bastardization of a word meaning a 1 with a 100 zeroies after it (1010) would dominate the world wide web in the form of Google. But, Bing isn’t a word it’s a self-referential, or recursive, acronym, abbreviation, standing for Bing is not Google.

As Ask brings Jeeves back from the grave, True Knowledge builds a plugin for natural language searching in Firefox, and Wolfram|Alpha, or Wolpha to its friends creates a knowledge calculator (definitely not a search engine), it seems Microsoft simply had to do something rather than flogging the dead horse that is Live search.

So, let me introduce Bing…except, of course, Bing is currently vaporware. Bing is purported to be planning to put the local back into search, whatever that means…personally I don’t need my results limited to the village in which I live given that 99.999% of the world’s scientists do not live here and that’s my main search.

Anyway, delivery of the new search engine that isn’t Google should have happened on May 28, apparently. But, it didn’t, as is the usual wont of Microsoft, there are delays. All we have so far is a “Coming Soon” page, but needless to say Bing is trending on Twitter right now.

So, how long shall we wait for bada Bing? How soon before we’re saying JFGI JFBI, Just F**king Bing It? Well, bing.com the website was first registered on January 28, 1996, a couple of months before I started my first website, in fact, so what’s a few months between friends, eh Bing?

20 responses so far ↓

  • David Bradley // May 29, 2009 at 1:26 am

    Bing Is Not Google – http://sciencetext.com/n9

  • Anonymous // May 29, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    He he. Nice post. Found it using Bing (preview).

  • Ari Herzog // May 30, 2009 at 5:26 am

    I’ve seen many examples of Bing in recent months–and the first thing that came to mind was Wolpha.

    Call me skeptical.

    There was another Google change, and I don’t refer to Bing or Wave: the now-bold suggestions when typing something into the search box. I hate that bold; and now I seek a checkbox to turn it around.

  • David Bradley // May 30, 2009 at 9:21 am

    I don’t think Bing is doing what Wolpha does…unless somehow you could say it’s calculating with words, but even then the MS vidz really just look like they’ve slightly extended what Google already does with autosuggest, Site Links, etc, and I suspect that as soon as Google sees exactly what Bing has to offer it will subsume any additional concepts into its system and Bing will be ba-da-gone.

  • Mila // May 31, 2009 at 6:03 am

    New Search Engine BING? (Bing Is Not Google~B.I.N.G., get it?) – http://sciencetext.com/n9 ~RT @sciencebase

  • David Bradley // Jun 1, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    Bing is now live, with pretty backgrounds and all the bells and whistles…anyone tried and tested it yet?

  • yid // Jun 2, 2009 at 6:58 am

    Bing is GOOD. And it will get BETTER. Google can suck it (the monopolizing evil b*st*rds who want to own your every breath and chart your erections before they occur).

  • David Bradley // Jun 2, 2009 at 7:46 am

    Err….wasn’t it Microsoft who were the monopolizing evil b*st*rds?

  • Kim Woodbridge // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    I don’t have a lot confidence in Microsoft’s success with Bing. I haven’t actually tried it although it seems to like my site – a lot of people have been finding me through Bing the last couple of days.

  • David Bradley // Jun 2, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    To be honest, I cannot see any benefits of Bing for general searching just yet, doesn’t Google already do autosuggest etc?

  • Acronyms // Jun 3, 2009 at 10:22 am

    Is there any major diff between msn search and Bing? //

  • Johnny Optimist // Jun 5, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    I tried several search after reading a comments in a WSJ article. I tried the searches the commentors mentioned, and my own. The results were, well, results. Just like the title of the article had suggested – Bing yields results.

    It didn’t say it gave you good, or relevant, or worthwhile results, but just “results”.

    I haven’t found a benefit to it over Live and it isn’t even worth mentioning as a competitor to Google based on results. Competitors are usually at least in the same ballpark, arena, etc. Bing registered for the race, but must have Elaine’s wake-up call service because they are still sleeping.

  • David Bradley // Jun 5, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Yeah…that’s my feeling after a few days of playing…it’s just results. Nothing special. Any decent features will be adopted by Google in a modified form and in a few weeks Bing will be forgotten

  • Wine Tourism // Jun 13, 2009 at 7:44 am

    I think Bing is great and I love it. I have stopped using Google and I am pretty satisfied. Bing is great improvement, it can not take down Google is short term but its a threat to Google for future. Keeping in mind that Google makes all its profit from Search Engines, any progress made by Microsoft will hurt Google’s pocket

  • David Bradley // Jun 13, 2009 at 9:51 am

    Apparently, 1% of the search market is worth $1 billion, so every percent Bing takes from Google is worth every cent to Microsoft.

  • CRodriguez // Jun 14, 2009 at 7:30 am

    Let’s get this straight, Google doesnt monopolize the market because everyone uses it.
    The Game Boy’s control of the handheld console market was never played a monopoly. Windows as the dominant OS isnt a monopoly (however MS’s abuse of their power is)
    A true monopoly would be if Google abused its power as top search engine (and by extension thru Youtube, as a video sharing site).
    MS has monopolized the PC much more than other hardware or software developers.

    And no search engine, Bing or otherwise, is bringing down Google anytime soon. Any new engine will lower Google’s stake (at least in terms of search), but that doesnt mean its better, or itll beat out Google. Also due to the extensive advertisement campaign on Bing’s behalf by MS, that lowering of Google’s stake will look much more dangerous than it will in due time.
    Finally, dont cut Bing out. Sure, most of us will never view it as we do Google or maybe even Yahoo! and Ask, but its gonna stick around. I predict itll become number 2 in the online search industry, but no where near as powerful as Google.

  • wigglesworth // Jun 15, 2009 at 5:47 am

    @David Bradley

    Google is the monopolizing evil bastard of search, video (YouTube), and payment systems.

    Microsoft is the monopolizing evil bastard of desktop applications and operating systems.

    I welcome them to each other’s turf.
    More innovation to come.

    In the meantime, I have switched from Google to Bing. It’s such a nice change from seeing the same old Google screen.

    The results are good enough for me. I love the built-in videos, translation could be better, though.

  • DoubleWha // Jun 15, 2009 at 5:53 am

    I switched to Bing. Results are on par with Google, but the interface is so much nice for me. And there are so many other features that Google doesn’t have, yet.
    Of course, Google is going to copy these missing features and put them in Google Search — just as Bing has copied Google — but unless Google changes its look and feel to something more warm and inviting, I’ll stick with Bing.

    what is important here is change: I just got tired of Google.

  • David Bradley // Jul 11, 2009 at 10:36 am

    Calm down, calm down Rev…

    I don’t think I was claiming Bing would ever outdo Google, but then they said that about AltaVista! Remember that. By the way Google is a bastardisation of a real word, googol. Look it up!

  • CRodriguez // Jul 12, 2009 at 5:29 am

    ‘Google’ is a corruption of ‘googol’ which is a number equal to 10^100 (thats 1 with a hundred zeros).
    ‘Bing’ is onomatopoeia, a word that imitates a sound.

Leave a Comment






← →