For awhile there I had completely given up hope on Microsoft. When they released Vista I was fairly convinced that was the end, the beginning of the decline for the titan. Perhaps part of that was wishful thinking given just how large and diverse they are.
But now, I think they’re turning things around! Roughly a decade late to the game, they’ve finally brought something worth bothering with, to the plate, and no I wasn’t referring to Windows 7, although if half the hype is true they may have got something right there too.
Microsoft’s re-skinned, re-designed, re-named search engine! Bing!
As many are keen to point out, not better than Google, but at least getting close to par.
From Webmonkey:
“Bing actually isn’t that bad of a search engine.
The problem is that Bing doesn’t really offer any compelling advantage over Google.
Bing is fast, offers a minimalist results page (which looks just like Google’s results, but with a bit more filtering/subsearch options in the left-hand sidebar), and acceptable, though not stellar, results. There’s not much more to it.”
I’d like to argue, that’s precisely what we like about Google. Minimalist. Many other search engines early on tried to stack on more and more functionality and in the end, people just wanted something simple and straight-forward.
Take the minimalist approach and combine it with something aesthetically pleasing like an excellent photo or two, and you’ve pleased both sides of the spectrum (those who want functionality and those who like to stare at pretty objects).
Will I stop using Google and start using Bing, maybe, probably not (I’ll probably just go to Bing for the sweet photography if it changes daily), but I’m not nearly as disappointed in Microsoft anymore.
Update: Study Released – See Lifehacker
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