Microsoft's High Hopes for Bing

Microsoft is hoping to boost its search engine market share with the launch of Bing, billed as a next generation search helping customers to make faster, more informed decisions.

The software giant, sometimes seen as staid and conservative next to rivals such as Google, has found a fresher name and look for its new offering, which is said to focus on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business. Microsoft calls Bing a 'Decision Engine, designed to empower people to gain insight and knowledge from the Web, moving more quickly to important decisions.

Announced on Thursday, the new services is scheduled for worldwide deployment on Wednesday 3rd June but appears already to be functioning for US and UK users.

Microsoft cites results from a comScore study across core search engines which 'show that as many as 30 percent of searches are abandoned without a satisfactory result' and that 'approximately two-thirds of the remaining searches required a refinement or requery on the search results page'. CEO Steve Ballmer says Bing was built on 'a deep understanding of how people really want to use the Web'.

New features are geared towards answering queries without the need to leave the search results page, or save time in choosing which to follow: they include Deep Links, which allow more insight into what resources a particular site has to offer; Quick Preview, a hover-over window that expands over a search result caption to provide a better sense of the related site's relevancy; and Instant Answers, designed to provide the sought-after information within the body of the search results page. Others attempt to help users organise search results or customise their search, including Explore Pane, a dynamically relevant set of navigation and search tools on the left side of the page; Web Groups, which groups results in intuitive ways both on the Explore Pane and in the actual results; and Related Searches and Quick Tabs, which is essentially a table of contents for different categories of search results.

Other Microsoft products and brands to be integrated with Bing are Microsoft's mapping platform, Virtual Earth; travel technology from the April 2008 acquisition of Farecast; and the cashback program, now Bing cashback.

The company reportedly plans to spend up to $100 million on advertising the service, online at www.bing.com .

Meanwhile Google has given a debut to a new application to provide UK businesses with export market research, named the Export Adviser toolkit. Partners on the project include HSBC, Royal Mail, UK Trade and Investment, the Institute of Export and Applied Language Solutions. The product maps countries where their products are widely Googled for; and will offer keyword advertising to match.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.