Bing's Bling Not Ready for Prime Time

By Tom Dunlap

To amplify what my colleague Chris Nerney wrote in Monday's blog post, "The Race For Real-Time Search Results," next-generation search is definitely in the spotlight, and the way I can tell is by a quirky TV commercial I saw last night while watching The Bachelorette.

In the spot, two guys are walking down the street. Guy 1 asks a question, and Guy 2, or should I say Nerd 2, sporting a goofy tie, spouts off all sorts of unrelated or barely related answers. This happens several times, and for a while it was one of those annoying commercials where you don't know what they're trying to sell.

It turned out to be an ad for Microsoft's new search engine Bing, which the software giant is marketing as a "decision engine." It's designed to integrate searches to (allegedly)  bring surfers better results than Google or Yahoo. Bing offers related searches, instant-play video clips, and images in addition to targeted search results. Check out Bing's eye-popping home page, which features a new, color-soaked picture every day.

Bing recently launched, and reviews -- decidedly mixed reviews -- are coming in. Is this just another prettied-up search engine that the company has tried (dare I say lipstick on a pig?), along the lines of Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search? Or is it a huge leap forward into the semantic web and/or Web 3.0?

I'm still testing it, but I'm pretty impressed so far with some of Bing's bling, including excellent video search capabilities. I also like the little pieces of info that pop up next to the search results when you mouse-over the line to the right of the results.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, as you might image, was less than impressed, as CNET News.com reported:

"It's not the first entry for Microsoft. They do this about once a year," Schmidt said in an interview with Fox Business Network. "I don't think Bing's arrival has changed what we're doing. We are about search, we're about making things enormously successful, by virtue of innovation."

Bing's TV ads, however, need some work. They remind me of all the lame commercials trying to sell Intel, CNET, Monster.com, Microsoft, and other sites and apps back in the 90s.

Thankfully, Microsoft has promised that future TV ads will focus more specifically on the areas where Bing hopes to differentiate itself -- tasks such as product search and travel. It's nice to hear, but will the TV spots really go beyond the company's other lame commercial attempts? Search me.