On the Other Hand, Microsoft Bings Google

By Tom Dunlap

Google certainly garnered the spotlight this week with news of its operating system, as my colleague Chris Nerney pointed out in yesterday's blog.

As an extremely long notebook user, and a former hardware reviewer for CNET in the late 90s and early 00s, I can't wait to try the Google Chrome Operating System.

So kudos to the search leader, and Microsoft should indeed be worried. But at the same time, Bing is slowly on the rise. Bing is Microsoft's new "decision engine," featuring an impressive-looking home page and some eye-popping search results.

It's hard to fathom that Microsoft could make such a search leap. Since when does the Redmond behemoth produce a brilliant piece of software? But the company indeed has. I urge you to give it a spin. For a look at the semantic web technology baked into Bing, check out the SemanticWeb.com article, "Are Semantics Helping Bing Make Better Decisions?," penned by our new writer Ron Miller.

Meanwhile, David Pogue of The New York Times wrote an excellent piece on Bing this week, "Bing, the Imitator, Often Goes Google One Better."  So far, it's the definitive piece on the new search engine:

Here's the shocker, though: in many ways, Bing is better.

That's quite a statement, of course -- almost heresy. But check it out yourself. It's easy to compare the two, thanks to sites like bing-vs-google.com. Here, you're shown search results from both Bing and Google, side by side, on a split screen.

At first, Bing is pretty much Google. Oh, there's a big National Geographic-y photo on the home page instead of plain white, but otherwise it's the same deal: a search box; a menu that offers to complete what you're typing; and inconspicuous links to Images, Videos, News, Shopping and Maps.

Once you hit Enter, however, you can't help noticing Bing's more concerted effort to get you answers faster. To minimize the clicking, the hunting, the dead ends.

For starters, how's this for a dream feature? Point to any search result without clicking; a pop-up balloon shows you the first few paragraphs of text on it. Without leaving the results list, you know if it's going to be helpful. Simple and irresistible.

Pogue winds up his State of the Art column with strong words of praise:

People won't start dumping Google en masse; Google is a habit. Everyone already knows how to work it, and it may be built right into your Web browser. But if you value your time, you should give Bing a fling.

Put another way, even if Bing really did stand for "But it's not Google," that is not necessarily an insult.