Home › Microsoft Streets and Trips › Bing.com - Will the new name help Microsoft?
Forget all the previous URLs, it's bing.com now!
Will the new bing.com name help Microsoft attract a larger audience for its online map service? In the past, some of us would turn to Google Maps, but Google now uses TeleAtlas as its major map data provider. Some people believe Navteq, the main map data provider for Microsoft's online mapping products, the trip planner Streets & Trips, and the business analysis software MapPoint, still has far superior data with fewer errors and omissions. So I personally would rather use a Microsoft mapping product, on-line or off-line, no matter what the name, rather than Google Maps as of today. However, the general public doesn't agree with me since the market share of maps.google.com is much higher.
How does bing.com compare to other search engines? When, for example, I enter "streets and trips" search term, this site, Laptop GPS World, comes up on positions #2 and #5 on the first result page. In contrast, in my observation, Google search engine tends to favor older websites, and quite often a young site, such as laptopgpsworld.com, may not necessarily come as high up on search results pages, even though it may have more relevant content on some topics than some older web sites.
But a fight against Google is not going to be easy. Google is the synonym for search. Yesterday, (June 1, 2009) 156 visitors came to this site via bing.com, and that pales in comparison to the 2,303 visitors from Google search. That number would actually be much higher if I added the number of referrals from Google Image Search, and Google Translate.
So my first impression is that bing.com is a search engine worth giving a try. Google may lack freshness, but in spite of that most people use it as their default search engine and/or set it as their Home Page in their web browser.
Here's Microsoft's press release in it's entirety:
But a fight against Google is not going to be easy. Google is the synonym for search. Yesterday, (June 1, 2009) 156 visitors came to this site via bing.com, and that pales in comparison to the 2,303 visitors from Google search. That number would actually be much higher if I added the number of referrals from Google Image Search, and Google Translate.
So my first impression is that bing.com is a search engine worth giving a try. Google may lack freshness, but in spite of that most people use it as their default search engine and/or set it as their Home Page in their web browser.
Here's Microsoft's press release in it's entirety:
Quote:
Microsoft's New Search at Bing.com Helps People Make Better Decisions
Decision Engine goes beyond search to help customers deal with information overload.
REDMOND, Wash., May 28, 2009 -- Microsoft Corp. today unveiled Bing, a new Decision Engine and consumer brand, providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions. Bing is specifically designed to build on the benefits of today's search engines but begins to move beyond this experience with a new approach to user experience and intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, focusing initially on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business. The result of this new approach is an important beginning for a new and more powerful kind of search service, which Microsoft is calling a Decision Engine, designed to empower people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to important decisions. The new service, located at http://www.Bing.com, will begin to roll out over the coming days and will be fully deployed worldwide on Wednesday, June 3.
The explosive growth of online content has continued unabated, and Bing was developed as a tool to help people more easily navigate through the information overload that has come to characterize many of today's search experiences. Results from a custom comScore Inc. study across core search engines show that as many as 30 percent of searches are abandoned without a satisfactory result. The data also showed that approximately two-thirds of the remaining searches required a refinement or requery on the search results page.
"Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they don't do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. "When we set out to build Bing, we grounded ourselves in a deep understanding of how people really want to use the Web. Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they've found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions."
A New Approach to Internet Search
Based on the customer insight that 66 percent of people are using Internet search more frequently to make complex decisions,* Microsoft identified three design goals to guide the development of Bing: deliver great results; deliver a more organized experience; and simplify tasks and provide insight, leading to faster, more confident decisions. The new service, built to go beyond today's search experience, includes deep innovation on core search areas including entity extraction and expansion, query intent recognition and document summarization technology as well as a new user experience model that dynamically adapts to the type of query to provide relevant and intuitive decision-making tools.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
* Ipsos 2009; 1,156 participants
Website: http://www.microsoft.com
Decision Engine goes beyond search to help customers deal with information overload.
REDMOND, Wash., May 28, 2009 -- Microsoft Corp. today unveiled Bing, a new Decision Engine and consumer brand, providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions. Bing is specifically designed to build on the benefits of today's search engines but begins to move beyond this experience with a new approach to user experience and intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, focusing initially on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business. The result of this new approach is an important beginning for a new and more powerful kind of search service, which Microsoft is calling a Decision Engine, designed to empower people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to important decisions. The new service, located at http://www.Bing.com, will begin to roll out over the coming days and will be fully deployed worldwide on Wednesday, June 3.
The explosive growth of online content has continued unabated, and Bing was developed as a tool to help people more easily navigate through the information overload that has come to characterize many of today's search experiences. Results from a custom comScore Inc. study across core search engines show that as many as 30 percent of searches are abandoned without a satisfactory result. The data also showed that approximately two-thirds of the remaining searches required a refinement or requery on the search results page.
"Today, search engines do a decent job of helping people navigate the Web and find information, but they don't do a very good job of enabling people to use the information they find," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. "When we set out to build Bing, we grounded ourselves in a deep understanding of how people really want to use the Web. Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they've found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions."
A New Approach to Internet Search
Based on the customer insight that 66 percent of people are using Internet search more frequently to make complex decisions,* Microsoft identified three design goals to guide the development of Bing: deliver great results; deliver a more organized experience; and simplify tasks and provide insight, leading to faster, more confident decisions. The new service, built to go beyond today's search experience, includes deep innovation on core search areas including entity extraction and expansion, query intent recognition and document summarization technology as well as a new user experience model that dynamically adapts to the type of query to provide relevant and intuitive decision-making tools.
- Great search results. Relevant search results are still a top priority for people, yet Microsoft studies show that only one in four search queries deliver a satisfactory result. Bing helps identify relevant search results through features such as Best Match, where the best answer is surfaced and called out; Deep Links, allowing more insight into what resources a particular site has to offer; and Quick Preview, a hover-over window that expands over a search result caption to provide a better sense of the related site's relevancy. Bing also includes one-click access to information through Instant Answers, designed to provide the sought-after information within the body of the search results page, minimizing the need for additional clicks.
- Organized search experience. More and more customers are regularly spending time with search engines, engaging in complex, multi-query and multi-session searches. Respondents also said an organized search experience would be twice as useful in helping find information and accomplishing tasks faster. Bing includes a number of features that organize search results, including Explore Pane, a dynamically relevant set of navigation and search tools on the left side of the page; Web Groups, which groups results in intuitive ways both on the Explore Pane and in the actual results; and Related Searches and Quick Tabs, which is essentially a table of contents for different categories of search results. Collectively, these and other features in Bing help people navigate their search results, cut through the clutter of search overload and get right down to making important decisions.
- Simplify tasks and provide insight. Microsoft's research identified shopping, travel, local business and information, and health-related research as areas in which people wanted more assistance in making key decisions. The current state of Internet search isn't optimized for these tasks, but the Bing Decision Engine is optimized for these key customer scenarios. For example, while a consumer is using Bing to shop online, the Sentiment Extraction feature scours the Internet for user opinions and expert reviews to help leverage the community of customers as well as product experts in trying to make a buying decision. In Bing Travel, the Rate Key compares the location, price and amenities of multiple hotels and provides a color-coded key of the best values, and the Price Predictor actually helps consumers decide when to buy an airline ticket in order to get the lowest prices.
- Microsoft's mapping platform, Virtual Earth, will now be branded as Bing Maps for Enterprise. More information can be found here.
- Technology from Microsoft's April 2008 acquisition of Farecast is now a central part of Bing Travel. More information can be found here.
- Microsoft's popular cashback program, now dubbed Bing cashback, with more than 850 merchants and more than 17 million products available, will be fully integrated into the Bing Shopping experience.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
* Ipsos 2009; 1,156 participants
Website: http://www.microsoft.com
It is nice to have a credible alternative to Google Maps. Perhaps a mapping horsepower race will develop to the benefit of us consumers.
What sort of "mapping horsepower race" do you see happening that would benefit us consumers? That is, what do you mean by "mapping horsepower"?
I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm genuinely curious about the specifics of what improvements you expect to see.
The thing about Google Maps and Microsoft's equivalent is not that they are improving maps (there is some argument to be made that Google went backwards in North America when they switched from Navteq to TeleAtlas as their map data supplier a few months ago).
1. They are improving people's access to digital maps - online.
2. They are improving what we can do with digital maps - online.
Notice the commonality between those two key issues -- you gotta be connected. That's good for planning purposes, if you have a connection. Not so much help for navigating.
...ken...
I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm genuinely curious about the specifics of what improvements you expect to see.
The thing about Google Maps and Microsoft's equivalent is not that they are improving maps (there is some argument to be made that Google went backwards in North America when they switched from Navteq to TeleAtlas as their map data supplier a few months ago).
1. They are improving people's access to digital maps - online.
2. They are improving what we can do with digital maps - online.
Notice the commonality between those two key issues -- you gotta be connected. That's good for planning purposes, if you have a connection. Not so much help for navigating.
...ken...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken in Regina
What sort of "mapping horsepower race" do you see happening that would benefit us consumers? That is, what do you mean by "mapping horsepower"? ...
When one vendor enjoys a monopoly, or near-monopoly, there is no incentive for that vendor to develop its product. Perhaps if Microsoft can make Bing into a credible competitive product to Google, both will be encouraged to roll out enhancements that might appeal to consumers and I can only see that as good for consumers. I don't know what those should be but I will stay tuned.
Yes, I'm old enough to understand exactly what you meant by "horsepower race" as it applies metaphorically to Google's and other online mapping systems. I was just wondering about what you thought, specifically, might come of it.
In case anyone hasn't been paying attention, what you described is precisely what is happening and it's been happening for a few years already. If you think back to the original MapQuest and Yahoo Maps and compare them to today, then compare the originals to Google Maps and Google Earth and Microsoft's Live Maps you can see huge -- mega-gigantic -- additions of features and functions already. And more taking shape as we watch.
Just one small - but hugely significant - example: GPSGate's (and others') online tracking features would not be possible without Google Maps open "programmability". There are dozens of other similar examples of features and functions which look minor by themselves but which have enabled, or might enable, entire industries to become widely accessible ... product niches which are changing from narrow and expensive to much wider and affordable.
It is exciting to watch and be part of.
...ken...
In case anyone hasn't been paying attention, what you described is precisely what is happening and it's been happening for a few years already. If you think back to the original MapQuest and Yahoo Maps and compare them to today, then compare the originals to Google Maps and Google Earth and Microsoft's Live Maps you can see huge -- mega-gigantic -- additions of features and functions already. And more taking shape as we watch.
Just one small - but hugely significant - example: GPSGate's (and others') online tracking features would not be possible without Google Maps open "programmability". There are dozens of other similar examples of features and functions which look minor by themselves but which have enabled, or might enable, entire industries to become widely accessible ... product niches which are changing from narrow and expensive to much wider and affordable.
It is exciting to watch and be part of.
...ken...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken in Regina
... I was just wondering about what you thought, specifically, might come of it...
TeleAtlas aside, what draws me to Google Maps are two things: crisper satellite imagery in some areas and the street view feature (they have covered a surprising amount of otherwise rural territory - saved me an untold amount of miles and gas in my research)
A perfect example of the big difference between Google and Bing maps: (was checking something in Google Maps' street view hence my choice of location)
Notice how flat Bing's imagery looks? If they could just get rid of whatever overlay they're putting on the imagery or make it switchable, I'd be using Bing Maps more just on principle.
Notice how flat Bing's imagery looks? If they could just get rid of whatever overlay they're putting on the imagery or make it switchable, I'd be using Bing Maps more just on principle.
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