Pinboard (guardiantech)

Challenging the challenge to the Bing It On Challenge >> Search Blog

guardiantech — 2013-10-03T21:26:36+00:00

Ian Ayres posted an article on Freakonomics yesterday challenging the claims that have been used on the Bing It On website.
A couple of notes are important before I talk about Ayres' claims. There are two separate claims that have been used with the Bing It On challenge. The first is "People chose Bing web search results over Google nearly 2:1 in blind comparison tests". We blogged about the method here and it was used back in 2012. In 2013, we updated the claim to "People prefer Bing over Google for the web's top searches", which I blogged about here. Ayres' frequently goes back and forth between the two claims in his post, so I wanted to make sure both were represented. Now, on to Ayers' issues and my explanations.

This is Bing's version of Inception, right?

Stepping Out of the Search Box >> Search Blog

guardiantech — 2013-09-17T20:23:29+00:00

A new visual identity doesn’t just happen overnight. We spent months looking at ways to update the look of Bing to represent what the product offers today, while achieving visual parity with Microsoft’s over-arching new look for the company. We worked with product, graphic and user experience designers to create a look that matches and grows with the product.
We knew our products were evolving beyond just the traditional search page. We were building apps for Windows 8, we were integrating search into Windows Phone and Xbox. This was much more than just a new logo or a single brainstorm.

TL:DR: Microsoft redesigned the Bing logo. The end.

Twitter testing Bing-powered translation feature >> AllThingsD

guardiantech — 2013-07-02T21:20:11+00:00

Twitter confirmed it was testing a tool to automatically translate tweets using Microsoft’s Bing search engine. In the implementation, tweets appear in the original language, with the translated tweet in smaller text below it (with a powered by “Bing translator” label). “To make it easier for people around the world to connect with each other, we are beginning to experiment with Tweet text translation,” a Twitter spokeswoman told AllThingsD.

The Bing challenge: with iOS 7 and Windows 8.1, search could be Microsoft's new platform >> The Verge

guardiantech — 2013-07-02T14:53:55+00:00

"About two years ago, Apple included Bing as one of the search engines in Safari." Ever since then, the two companies have had ongoing discussions around what else they could work on together. "It was one of those meetings where we thought 'Wow, we’re ready to work on the next thing together,' back in the fall," says [Bing VP of program management Derrick] Connell. The big question for Apple was whether Bing's quality was good enough to power Siri. "I think a lot of the execs at Apple switched over to Bing for a period just to see if they could get the full experience of using Bing," notes Connell. The feedback was positive enough for Bing to generate a deal to handle Siri web queries in iOS 7, which launches later this year. Theoretically, a future version of OS X could also integrate Bing, a logical step if the iOS work is well-received by users.

Having Bing as a default in Mac OSX would be unimportant, globally speaking. Having it as the system-wide default in iOS would be very important - both to Microsoft and Google.

Microsoft Explored Plans to Build Amazon Rival >> Wall Street Journal

guardiantech — 2013-06-21T04:54:30+00:00

Greg Bensinger and Shira Ovide:

Microsoft Corp. recently explored rolling out an e-commerce marketplace aimed at taking on heavyweights Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc., according to people briefed on the company's plans.
The software giant held discussions with retailers and technology companies about a marketplace, proposing to equip it with an array of merchants, as well as a unified shopping cart and broad shipping options, according to these people. To lure shoppers, Microsoft was considering subsidizing the price of goods on its e-commerce service using a portion of advertising dollars merchants spend on Microsoft's Bing Web-search engine or elsewhere, said the people.

The scheme has apparently been shelved, for now, with Microsoft describing Project Brazil (as it was known) as "an incubation to enable a more direct commerce model between customers and brands and merchants" that would be available on Xbox consoles, smartphones and tablets as well as computers.

My life with Bing >> Above the Crowd

guardiantech — 2013-04-30T17:07:36+00:00

Bill Gurley:

With regards to core search, the Bing results were perfectly fine. I never struggled to find anything. I never forced myself to redo the search on Google. So I would say Bing is on-par in terms of traditional, core search quality.
2) Where I did struggle was with the non-core search searches (i.e. maps, images, videos, news).

This was 2012, but much the same applies today.

Study: many searchers choose Google over Bing even when Google's name is on Bing's results >> Search Engine Land

guardiantech — 2013-04-15T21:00:37+00:00

In a recent study by SurveyMonkey examining SEO assumptions, respondents were given two search result pages, one with a page header labeled “Google” and the other with a page header labeled “Bing,” and asked which page of results they preferred. Even when the page header labels were swapped, more users preferred the Google search results.
Of 641 survey respondents, 379 participants received a survey asking which of two search result pages they preferred. One page of results for the term “file taxes” included true Google results and the other page included true Bing results. The Google page was chosen by majority of the respondents.

(Thanks @HotSoup for the link.)

Yandex just passed Bing to become 4th largest global search engine >> Search Engine Watch

guardiantech — 2013-02-07T20:30:29+00:00

Yandex surpassed Microsoft on the number of monthly search queries worldwide in November and December 2012, according to a recently released comScore qSearch report. Microsoft sites processed 4.477bn queries and Yandex did 4.844bn. As you’d expect, Google still reigned supreme with 114.73bn search queries and a 65.2% market share. China search giant Baidu was second globally with 14.5bn (8.2%), and Yahoo came in third with 8.63bn (4.9%).

Russia is big and has lots of internet users. The maps on the page were broken so it's unclear whether Yandex is getting share outside its homeland.

How Google and Microsoft taught search to “understand” the Web >> Ars Technica

guardiantech — 2012-06-12T00:04:32+00:00

Microsoft’s Satori and Google’s Knowledge Graph both extract data from the unstructured information on webpages to create a structured database of the “nouns” of the Internet: people, places, things, and the relationships between them all. The changes aren't cosmetic; for Google, for example, this was the company's biggest retooling to search since rolling out "universal search" in 2007.
The efforts are in part a fruition of ideas put forward by a team from Yahoo Research in a 2009 paper called “A Web of Concepts,” in which the researchers outlined an approach to extracting conceptual information from the wider Web to create a more knowledge-driven approach to search.

Great article. Yahoo - remember them? (Thanks @tehgreatgonzo for the link.)

Microsoft and Facebook align further with patent deal >> NYTimes.com

guardiantech — 2012-04-30T21:12:03+00:00

That patent deal last week was straightforward enough. But:

There is also wide speculation that Facebook will start its own Internet search engine to rival Google.
“Microsoft is simply less concerned about the threat of social to its business than Google is,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner, a research firm, explaining why Microsoft is not concerned about competition with Facebook.
“This may be a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he added. Jim Prosser, a Google spokesman, declined to comment.

Also says that senior Microsoft executives (but not Ballmer) tried to get Facebook interested in buying Bing. It wasn't.

I switched to Bing on the iPhone and it didn't kill me >> The Next Web

guardiantech — 2012-02-04T17:40:44+00:00

Matt PAnzarino examines whether Apple could dump Google from iOS devices:

Apple is already working on what is, at least judging from acquisitions, a technically superior version of Maps built specifically for iOS devices. But you can’t build a search engine in a day, or even in a couple of years. So the only viable option is to change the default iPhone search engine from Google to Bing. So I decided to take Bing for a spin, changing it to my default search engine for a month or two. What I found was that it actually could be a very solid alternative to Google for a large portion of iPhone users, and that it might even be a better fit for the majority of those than Google is.

However, that's not really a reflection of what he did find. Bing was good on local but less good on maps, news, gossip and some "geeky" searches. But of course, nobody changes defaults.

Bing U.S. market share flat at 14.7% during September >> WinRumors

guardiantech — 2011-10-13T05:34:35+00:00

"Microsoft’s Bing search market share maintained its 14.7% in the United States during the month of September. "The software giant’s “decision engine” held onto 14.7% U.S. market share compared to Google’s 65.3% according to data from comScore. Yahoo’s market share dropped to 15.5% following a 16.3% figure in August." That's going to put a dent in Mashable's straight-line extrapolation where Bing + Yahoo take over from Google some time next year, then.

Dear Bing & Yahoo: pushing deckchairs around isn't a good plan >> Search Engine Land

guardiantech — 2011-09-25T20:45:36+00:00

Danny Sullivan asks (as he's been asking for a while): "What’s the plan, Bing? Because 'at least I’m going to do something' isn’t enough.
"In reality, the plan seems to be hang in there long enough until Yahoo slips away. It’s probably not a bad plan. Another plan might be to stop spending all that money on advertising. That never worked long term in the past. Marketshare might not drop, but the red ink might.
"And, reading from Ad Age today, it sounds like the whole Decision Engine idea might be going away period. Sounds good. How about something fun, play off that old joke everyone thought Bing stood for, 'Because it’s not Google.' Give us some ads like 'Bing: We’re Not Google.'"

Twitter renews deal with Bing; Google deal remains MIA >> Search Engine Land

guardiantech — 2011-09-07T15:55:07+00:00

Danny Sullivan: "At the very least, you’d expect Google at this point to relaunch Google Realtime Search with content from Google+ as a replacement. Not being able to search through content on Google’s own social network, from a company that specializes in search, is pretty absurd.
"Google Realtime Search wasn’t just Twitter search, and the ability to use Google to search through content on other social networks got axed when Google closed it. So bring it back, even if it comes back without Twitter — and get moving on that Google+ search feature.
"As for Bing, search without Twitter isn’t old news. It’s old, old news. Bing’s had a deal with Twitter since October 2009, and that deal hasn’t really seemed to do much to attract visitors over to Bing."

Can anyone think of anything that *would* attract visitors over to Bing, aside from Google's servers all dying? (And even then..)

Bing’s battle with Google: how long is “long term”? >> Search Engine Land

guardiantech — 2011-08-02T20:45:34+00:00

Points out that Microsoft's protestations that it's into Bing for the long term (a good thing, since it really started in 2005; all that's happened since then has been two rebrandings) don't mean much if you don't define "success" or quite when you have entered the "long term".

With the Bing Search Engine, Microsoft Plays the Underdog >> NYTimes.com

guardiantech — 2011-08-01T06:28:35+00:00

Going toe-to-toe with Google costs Microsoft $5bn+ *a year*, according to industry execs who spoke to the NYT. And who said it should axe Bing?

Why Microsoft Won't Dump Bing -- Redmondmag.com

guardiantech — 2011-07-26T17:17:13+00:00

Mary Jo Foley: "I wouldn't be surprised to see Bing more tightly coupled with Windows 8. Given there's going to be a Windows 8 App Store, users will need to search the new marketplace for apps.
"While the world sees Bing as a distant No. 2 search engine, Microsoft brass and bean counters see Bing as a reusable component and asset that will be built into more and more products. Those who think Microsoft will discard Bing or sell it to the highest bidder are dead wrong -- that won't happen now or any time soon."

Baking Bing into Windows 8 sounds like a recipe for an antitrust suit. If Google has any sense, it's already got at least one lawyer preparing a case on why that cause consumer harm - the foundation of Sherman antitrust cases.

Bing Becomes a Costly Distraction for Microsoft >> NYTimes.com

guardiantech — 2011-07-26T06:04:05+00:00

"Microsoft needs to concentrate on a different kind of search: finding a buyer for Bing, its online search business. Bing is the industry’s distant No. 2 after Google. It has become a distraction for the software giant — one that costs shareholders dearly. The division that houses Bing lost $2.6 billion in the latest fiscal year. Facebook, or even Apple, might make a better home for Bing. A sale would be a boon for Microsoft’s investors."

This Is what Microsoft Is getting for Its big Bing investment >> Business Insider Chart of the Day

guardiantech — 2011-07-15T05:29:20+00:00

"After spending billions of dollars over the last two years fighting Google with Bing, what does Microsoft have to show for it?
"Not much from a marketshare perspective. The latest comScore data shows Bing's share is at 14.4%, and it's not exactly growing like a weed."

More like a stick, really.

Google decides knowledge is power >> I, Cringely

guardiantech — 2011-05-25T05:21:22+00:00

"Microsoft did more than just try to out-search Google. They gave some serious thought to how to make the quest for information on the Internet more productive and useful. Bing struck a chord with users and competitors alike and one result is that Google, too, is becoming more results-centric. That’s what is largely behind this perceptual shift from search to knowledge. It was behind Google’s Instant Search results, too — a technically non-trivial effort that lies at the heart of what this particular column is all about. For the moment, Google trading search for knowledge is just posturing, but in the longer run it has really significant meaning. It’s a game-changer."

Google decides knowledge is power >> I, Cringely

guardiantech — 2011-05-25T05:20:41+00:00

Bing Facebook Friends Now Fueling Faster Decisions on Bing >> Bing Community

guardiantech — 2011-05-17T06:48:09+00:00

Big move: "Starting today, you can receive personalized search results based on the opinions of your friends by simply signing into Facebook. New features make it easier to see what your Facebook friends “like” across the Web, incorporate the collective know-how of the Web into your search results, and begin adding a more conversational aspect to your searches. Decisions can now be made with more than facts, now the opinions of your trusted friends and the collective wisdom of the Web."

Bing Microsoft and RIM helping people make better decisions with Bing on BlackBerry >> Microsoft Bing blog

guardiantech — 2011-05-04T05:17:24+00:00

"This morning at RIM’s annual Blackberry World, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced on stage a new alliance between Microsoft and RIM, outlining how the two companies can work together to help people make better decisions with Bing on BlackBerry devices.
Central to this collaboration, , Blackberry devices will use Bing as the preferred search provider in the browser, and Bing will be the default search and map application for new devices presented to mobile operators, both in the United States and internationally. Also, effective today Bing will be the preferred search and maps applications with regular, featured placement and promotion in the BlackBerry App World carousel."

Two things. First, if RIM has been smart then it will have driven a hard bargain on this, which means that it will get a payment for every use - and installation? - of Bing. Second, will people who want to change it be able to?

I’m working at Microsoft and we’re donating imagery to OpenStreetMap! >> Steve Coast

guardiantech — 2011-04-21T05:28:10+00:00

"I’ve super excited to tell you that I've accepted a position as Principal Architect at Bing Mobile and am moving to the Seattle, Washington area to work on maptastic things! Yay!
"Even better, Microsoft is donating access to its global orthorectified aerial imagery to help OpenStreetMappers make the map even better than it already is."

This is fantastic news for Steve, and for Bing, and for OpenStreetMap. Congratulations to all - everyone wins from this. Steve Coast's achievements with OpenStreetMap can't be underestimated.

Bing’s Marketshare Keeps On Increasing - But Not At Google’s Expense >> paidContent

guardiantech — 2011-04-14T14:08:02+00:00

"The latest comScore figures show that Bing now controls 13.9% of the search market, up from 13.6% in February, and 8% in May 2009, when Bing was still known as Live Search. One problem: Microsoft is still taking market share from partner Yahoo and not from Google."

Details, details.

Data: Bing, Yahoo gain on Google in US >> GeekWire

guardiantech — 2011-04-13T05:51:13+00:00

"Microsoft Bing and Yahoo both posted gains in the U.S. search market in March, lifting their combined market share to more than 30%, according to the latest numbers from the Experian Hitwise market research firm. Meanwhile, Google slipped 3 percentage points, to less than 65% of the market, according to the firm’s data.

"It’s good news for Microsoft, which powers the Yahoo search results under a partnership between the companies."

Well, we'll see if it's actually good news next week, when Microsoft announces its quarterly results. When it isn't losing hundreds millions of dollars per quarter on search, then its Yahoo tieup can be called "good news".

Ex-Microsoft employee charged with stealing $450k from company >> GeekWire

guardiantech — 2011-04-12T21:10:00+00:00

"Federal prosecutors in Seattle have charged a former Microsoft business development director, Robert D. Curry, with three counts of wire fraud — alleging that he embezzled more than $450,000 from the company in part by fabricating Bing toolbar distribution deals and funneling the resulting payments from Microsoft through an unwitting contractor to a company that he controlled."

Oh, dear.