Bing, Another Drop in the Bucket for Microsoft?
“Bing!” No I’m not mocking Matthew Perry’s fictional character Chandler Bing from the sitcom Friends, but rather I’m mocking Microsoft’s latest attempt at a search engine, Bing, which was unveiled Thursday at D7, the All Things Digital conference in San Diego. Actually, I’m not mocking anything, Bing actually looks impressive. The moment may have arrived where one can use ‘Microsoft’ and ’search engine’ in the same sentence without being ridiculed.
It’s been a long time coming that Microsoft roll out a search engine that people might actually take interest in. However, Microsoft touts Bing as much more than a search engine, rather a ‘decision engine’. The assertion is that while current search models do well at answering simple questions such as ”What’s the capital of Botswana?,” a decision engine helps solve problems like, ”Where should we go for dinner tonight?” Bing claims to help you “overcome search overload and find the best choice faster.”
While some can’t help but poke fun at the name, and others are (lightheartedly) outraged because it actually is their name, one year from now if you catch yourself saying “Bing it,” you’ll know that Microsoft has finally done it, and Bill Gates can chalk one up for the home team.
