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For years Microsoft has watched in frustration as Google dominated the online-search market, raking in billions of dollars in search-related advertising. No matter what Microsoft tried, it seemed, Google just got stronger and stronger, gaining ever more market share. All this was driving Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer a little bit crazy. If there's one thing Ballmer simply can't stand, it's watching dollars go to Google (or anyone else, for that matter) that he thinks should be going to his company. Especially when those dollars are counted in billions. For Ballmer, this is like living in a nightmare, and he will do anything—anything—to make that nightmare stop. As a former Microsoftie once told me, "Don't ever get between Steve and the money."
But Microsoft is very persistent, and very patient. They're also very good at adapting ideas from other companies and sometimes even improving on them. And now, guess what? After a decade of flailing and failing, Microsoft rolled out a new search engine in June, its third attempt to compete with Google on that front. This one, called Bing, has managed to gain a bit of share in the Internet search market. What's more, Microsoft has done it the old-fashioned way: by being better and more innovative. Weirder still, Bing is actually getting loads of positive buzz from hardcore techie types, the folks who usually deride any product Microsoft introduces simply because it comes from Microsoft. (To use a Star Trek analogy, when it comes to techies and their biases, Microsoft is like the Mirror Universe of Apple: Apple can do nothing wrong, Microsoft can do nothing right.)
Suddenly the Borg, as Microsoft is not-so-affectionately known, seems to have a bit of a hit on its hands. Could this turn things around in the fight against Google? The short answer is, it's too early to tell; Bing only went live last month. According to research firm StatCounter, over the course of that month, Microsoft saw its share of U.S. Web searches inch up a tiny bit, from 7.2 percent to 8.23 percent. Last week, on July 9, Bing actually leapt ahead of Yahoo to become the No. 2 search engine in the U.S., with a 12.9 percent share versus Yahoo's 10.15 percent. That was just for one day, and Microsoft has beaten Yahoo on isolated days in the past. But it's still noteworthy, considering how new Bing is.
Bing and Yahoo remain way behind Google, which handles more than 70 percent of U.S. Web searches on any given day. (In fact, a different researcher, Hitwise, just put out numbers showing Google continuing to gain share in June, even after Bing came out.) The best anyone can say at this point is that Bing seems to be doing better than other search engines that have sprung up to challenge Google—like Cuil, which got loads of buzz last year and then quickly fizzled out. "Bing is gaining some traction," says Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter. "It's slow but steady. I think they're going to capture some market share."
Folks at Microsoft say they're seeing some encouraging data too. For example: the number of "unique visitors" using Microsoft search products has grown 8 percent since Bing was launched. They've seen a threefold jump in the number of people using the search engine for shopping. "We're not breaking out the champagne yet. But we're cautiously optimistic," says Danielle Tiedt, general manager of Microsoft's Online Audience Business Group.
Certainly Bing is getting a boost simply because it's new, and because everyone has been talking about it thanks to Microsoft's marketing push. It's also getting some great reviews from David Pogue of The New York Times and from Katherine Boehret of The Wall Street Journal.
Whether the people who are using Bing will stick around remains to be seen. But they should, because Bing has some features that Google lacks. For example:
Homepage photo. Maybe this seems ridiculous, but looks do matter, especially on the Web. Go to Google and you get a big white page with a search box in it. Bing, on the other hand, sets the search box into a high-resolution photo of some gorgeous location, which changes every day. Hover over the photo, and you pull up text boxes with a bit of information and links to even more info. It sounds frivolous, but these really are amazing photographs. And they're kind of addictive. "We've been surprised by how much people have reacted to the image on the homepage," Tiedt says. "People are really connecting to it. They say, `I can't wait to get up and see what the Bing image is for the day.' It's so simple, but it has been a huge hit."
Specialized search. Microsoft has added specialized search capabilities in four areas: shopping, travel, health, and local information. Supposedly you get better, faster, more accurate results when you're doing things like shopping for products online and want to compare prices. Have you ever tried to research something health-related on Google? You're just as likely to get fringe results from less reliable sources as you are to get anything you can trust. Microsoft does better by tapping into sources like the Mayo Clinic and the American Cancer Society.
Twitter search. Type in a keyword, and in addition to getting links to photos and Web sites and videos, you get some Tweets. This is still pretty limited, but it's cool to be able to get real-time info. Google doesn't have this, but no doubt they are working on it.
Hover. Type in a keyword, pull up the results, then "hover" your mouse over the search results and you pull up a little bit of info from that page, which lets you skip answers that aren't what you're looking for. It's a neat little trick and a useful way to save time and avoid dead ends.
Videos. As with Google, you can choose "Video" from a menu across the top of the search page. But Microsoft does Google one better. It pulls up a huge page of videos and lets you preview any of them by hovering your mouse over the thumbnail. In other words, you can play the movie without actually opening the link. This one is a huge time saver. Or a huge time waster, since Bing makes it way too easy to just sit at your desk watching video after video.
Images. You can choose "Images" from the menu, much like with Google, but here again Bing does one better, showing you hundreds of thumbnails on a single huge page, rather than making you jump from one page with 20 photos to another. Hover over any thumbnail and you pull up info about it—what Web site it comes from, how big the photo is, and so forth. Again, this isn't going to win Microsoft a Nobel Prize or anything, but it's a really cool feature and saves you a lot of time. Bing also lets you get funky with the way photos are laid out on the page, customizing the layout to put more pictures per row, and so on.
Left-handcolumn. Type in a keyword and you not only get the regular list of results in blue down the middle of the page, but you also get a column on the left that shows you "Related Searches" that you might find useful. If you're looking at a celebrity like Sacha Baron Cohen, you get links to his fan club, quotes from him, and interviews with him. All this makes it easy to perform a search that goes "sideways"—i.e., leaping from one related thing to another—rather than just moving straight ahead linearly.
Search history. At the bottom of that left-hand column is a list of your recent searches on Bing, which makes it very easy to go back to something you were looking at before. This comes in handy when you're doing one of those sideways searches, roaming around here and there, because it lets you retrace your steps and go back to where you began.
Bottom line: Bing is nice. Really nice. Will it kill Google? Nah. Most of us, to be honest, are creatures of habit. And we're all in the habit of using Google, so much so that the company's name has become a verb. Quitting Google is like quitting smoking. It can be done, but I think it would involve rewiring part of your brain. It's especially tough for those of us who now rely heavily on other Google programs, like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps, and YouTube. Lately I've begun to realize how completely Google has grown up around my online existence, like some kind of creeping kudzu. I don't mean this in a bad way. Google makes some great products, so great, in fact, that you can't help using them.
At the same time, will Bing put pressure on Google to add features to its search engine instead of resting on its laurels? Definitely. In fact, I'm sure that right now, hidden away in the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., a bunch of programmers are toiling away to imitate (and hopefully, improve upon) the innovations that Microsoft has introduced. That kind of competition is a good thing for all of us.