Bing is Microsoft's new search engine. You may have seen the flurry of advertisements that have hit over the past few days. Bing has been expected to arrive for a while now, but it launched early, and unexpectedly, on June 1st. For a software company like Microsoft, accustomed to delays in the release of new products, this is probably somewhat of an internal coup.
According to reports this morning, Bing has already jumped past Yahoo, making it the number two search engine behind Google's dominating online presence. Whether it will retain that ranking or if this is simply an initial bump in ratings remains to be seen.
Bing provides traditional search capability as you would expect, but it also is making a case for being a "decision engine". The home page for Bing is a very pleasing and easy to understand design. As opposed to the very plain appearance of Google that we have all become accustomed to, Bing has very crisp photographic backgrounds that are really striking. When you input your search, you are presented with a fairly standard search result page, just as you would expect. Where Bing's "decision engine" goes to work is with several tabs across the top of the page. Based on your search criteria, you will have options to click tabs for images, shopping, maps, etc. and Bing will show you results that are refined from your original search, thus saving you some time. It's actually very efficient and an interesting model that if successful, you can expect to see the others replicate quickly. Along the left side of the results page is also a running history of your search, making it very easy to move back and forth between current and prior searches. Bing also sports a mobile site at m.bing.com.
I've tried the standard and the mobile sites and find them to be fast, efficient and intuitive. I'd recommend giving it a try. Should you switch to Bing from your favorite search engine? That's entirely up to you. Given the past flops in this area for Microsoft, it will be interesting to see how the market responds to Bing.
