The speculation is over. Microsoft’s search engine
officially has a new name,
Bing.
The name, along with some new features, opens the latest chapter in
Microsoft’s quest to best Google in the search engine wars.
If you’re expecting Bing to be a Google-killer, reset your
expectations. The most dramatic change, in my view, remains the name
itself. I can’t say that Bing is the best of names, but neither is it
the worst. It’s certainly better than the “Live Search” moniker that’s
resonated with few, including even those at Microsoft itself.
The new name, along with $80 million in marketing that Microsoft is
unleashing, will undoubtedly attract brand new visitors to Microsoft’s
search engine plus get some who had previously given up on Live Search
to take another look. What they’ll find is a search engine with solid
relevancy plus some new features that might hook a few of them into
staying.
Below, a drill-down on those new features. However, I highly recommend that you also read Greg Sterling’s companion article,
Microsoft’s Bing Vs Google: Head To Head Search Results. For those interested in a market analysis of how Bing may fare, see my companion article:
State Of Search: Google Will Stay Strong Despite Bing & Yahoo
Note that in the screenshots below, you’ll still see the old “Live
Search” branding or sometimes the “Kumo” brand that was used internally
at Microsoft. While the logos might be different, the functionality is
the same as that which will be shown to those using Bing — which is
set to launch early next week, first as a “preview’ and then formally.
I’m also focusing on changes to the main search results page. Bing,
like Live Search before it, has a variety of specialized search
engines. It’s simply too much to cover all of these in a single review —
as separate search engines on their own, they deserve more room (and
would also need to be compared to corresponding specialized search
engines from Google and others). Also, some of these services haven’t
changed dramatically other than in branding, so a deeper look now isn’t
as necessary.
Categorized Search & Web Groups
Probably the most significant change is that Bing now organizes search results into categories. For example, in a search on
obama,
you can see in the screenshot above how the arrow points to the new
categories that are listed at the top left of the page (in a column
that Microsoft calls the Explore Pane, and the tab-like links are
called — yes — “Quick Tabs”):
- Images
- Biography
- Facts
- Quotes
- Speeches
- Issues
- Videos
This is Bing telling the searcher that for the general topic of
“obama,” it has results that relate to his biography, speeches he’s
made, issues he’s taken and so on.
Not every search brings up these links. At launch, Microsoft they’re more likely to appear for queries relating to:
- Automobiles (car models, car manufacturers)
- Travel & Local (countries, cities, states, points of interest like stadiums and parks)
- People (celebrities, athletes, musicians, bands, politicians)
- Sports (NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB teams)
- Health (cancer, diet, over-the-counter and prescription drugs, symptoms, genetic and conditional disease, injury trauma)
- Entertainment (popular television shows, movies)
- Retail (certain electronics such as cameras, cell phones and optics products)
- Events (Oscars, Fourth of July, NASCAR, etc.)
Over time, more queries will also get categorization.
By clicking on the category links, you can drill into more specific
results. More on that, in a moment. However, anticipating that some
searchers might ignore the category options, Bing also automatically
lists results from each category into the main results page, into what
it calls “Web Groups.”
For example, the screenshot above shows how images of Obama are
automatically shown, then below that, some general search results about
him. But if you scroll further:
Notice how there’s a subheading called “Obama Biography” followed by
some results on that topic, then there’s another subheading called
“Obama Facts,” followed by results on that subject. Scroll further
still:
Now you have another subheading called “Obama Quotes” with matching
results, followed by “Obama Speeches” with results on that topic.
In all, you get 20 results rather than the 10 results that have long
been the norm for search engines. I’d say that’s a good thing, in that
the more results you present, the more chances you’ll have at surfacing
something that will match a searcher’s interest (assuming you have
good overall relevancy). Most searches don’t go past the first page of
results — so a match should help reinforce a sense of satisfaction.
Then again, Microsoft is taking a chance that people will be
interested in the Web Groups it has selected. To increase the odds of
this, the company says these groups are drawn on the topics most
queried in relation to a core term. In other words, many people looking
for “obama” also then do additional queries to find his biography, or
information on his speeches and so on.
Will it work? That remains to be seen, of course. Personally, I find
the page fairly busy. I suspect people either won’t notice the various
subheadings (and so miss out on the grouping Microsoft is trying to do)
or find they’re distracting from the actual listings.
The concept of grouping results also isn’t new. Long known as clustering, you can see it in operation at Hakia (see
obama there) or Clusty (again, see
obama there). Microsoft says that it is putting its own unique blend to it, but will that be compelling enough?
Also keep in mind that even Google has a form of clustering. Called
related search suggestions,
it’s nowhere near as dramatic as what Bing does. In some cases, if
Google thinks someone might be searching for results related to what
they initially entered — but not exactly the same — it will insert these
into the middle of the page. For example, consider a search on
mini:
Microsoft lists far more categories related to the car, from “parts”
to “specs,” but note also that in the Related Searches section,
“miniclip” comes up:
They may seem like different things — Google’s simply showing you
matches for a related search while Microsoft is taking a set of search
results and organizing them. But that’s not the case.
Actually, each of the “Web Groups” themselves on Bing is a related
search. Remember earlier I said that if you clicked on a category link,
you could drill-down? If you do that for the
Biography category
of the obama search, you get 10 biography-specific results. And the
first three of those? They’re the ones that get mixed into the
“biography” section of the main page. The same is true if you select
the
Facts category.
In short, if what Microsoft is doing really catches on, I have little
doubt that Google could replicate it. But I’m not really expecting it
will be a major feature that grabs attention. Certainly it will make
Microsoft distinctive from Google — which can be good — but I also
think the feature is going to morph in short order. And that brings me
to Related Searches.
Related Searches
In the screenshot above, you can see a list of “Related Search” for my original search of
memorial day.
Related searches aren’t new to to Microsoft. Live Search had them —
heck, MSN Search before Live Search had them. All the major search
engines have related searches.
I point them out primarily because they’re confusing to me with the
categories, which are also related searches, just under a different
name. Both are ways to refine a search, and I worry that by splitting
things up, Microsoft is actually dividing attention away from an
important feature — even if it’s one that relatively few will use. I
followed up with Microsoft about this point, and this is what they sent
me:
With categorized search what we’ve done is take the related
searches for individual queries and pop them up a level of abstraction
to about classes of entries. That allows us to offer a consistent set
of refinement tools between different queries about the same class of
entries. For example, almost any city query will show “attractions” as a
refinement in the web groups. Web Groups are common refinements for a
class (i.e. autos) and entity within that class (i.e. Cooper Mini) that
we see people across the web making post their initial query for that
class entity (Auto, Mini Cooper). We use the web groups both to help
with one-click refinement BUT also to break up the results on the search
engine results page (SERP) into these common follow-on refinements. In
other words, if we know many people traditionally search for Problem
after Mini, why not display a few of the organic results for “Mini
Problems” right on the first page of the SERP (which is what we do with
web groups). Clicking on Problems in the TOC [category listings tab]
does issue an entirely new query where the entire SERP is dedicated to
“Mini Problems” organic results. Related Searches, on the other hand,
are really more about collaborative filtering and dictionary/synonym
technology to understand the most common queries related to that initial
term. Web Groups offer a level of abstraction that help you see the
most common results within the most common refinements for a query
easily.
How used will related searches be, much less the category tabs?
Historically, features like these aren’t used much. Microsoft says its
studies find nearly half the queries initially performed get refined at
some point in a search session. But most of that refinement is done by
people manually adding new words, rather than using helper features,
they confirmed for me. Still, perhaps the unique tabs will catch on
more.
Search History
Further below on the left side of the search page is a new Search
History area. Way, way back in Microsoft’s early days, they had a
feature somewhat like this. It’s nice to see it come back.
Search History activates even if you’re not logged in, keeping track
of your queries for up to 48 hours, as long as you’re using the same
browser. If you manually clear your history, which is easy to do — or
clear your browser’s cookies — then the history is gone. Want to store
things longer? If you have a Windows Live account, you can make use of
Windows SkyDrive folders and access your history from any computer.
Want to save to your computer? If you’ve got Silverlight, then you can
save to your “My Search Folders.” No Silverlight, no luck.
While search history is nice to have, it’s incredibly rudimentary compared to the
more mature search history system that Google operates
— and importantly, also uses to help refine results based on a user’s
interests. But Microsoft says improvements will continue here. The also
sent me as a follow-up on this aspect:
While the feature doesn’t have every aspect that Google’s
History feature does, it does make the history feature more usable by
most people by virtue of not requiring a sign-in and placing it on the
main search results page by default.
Best Match
For some queries, a single “Best Match” results may appear, such as
for UPS, as the screenshot shows above. These are designed to show the
very best site in cases where Microsoft is super confident you only
need a single link. It also provides things like the ability to search a
particular company’s web site below its link, along with links to key
areas of its site and customer service numbers. I like the simplicity
of this and look forward to continuing to test how well it works.
In other cases, a Best Match result will appear above other search
results, rather than these being hidden. This is in cases where
Microsoft is pretty confident is knows what most people want but also
wants to cover the few looking for something different. A search for
“target” or “apple” brings up examples of this.
Quick Previews
Keep your thumbnail images, Bing’s trying something different. Hover
next to the right of any listing, and you’ll see a short excerpt from
the page, text that Microsoft thinks is additionally relevant beyond
the standard description that showing. It’s a nice feature that
hopefully will get used, though it’s easy to miss. It can allow you to
better decide if you want to click through and save some time.
Instant Answers
While some of these aren’t new, “instant answers” or “direct answers”
is an area I think Microsoft is particularly strong. Getting the
actual results to the Oscars or the Kentucky Derby at the top of the page? That’s great relevancy, even if there are human editors involved.
Beyond that are some standard things like entering a flight number to
get airline tracking information or movies followed by a ZIP code for
local listings. Google and Yahoo also offer similar features, so where
Microsoft shines is places where it goes beyond — such as the ability
to get a
ski report.
Other Things
There’s much more in the new release. I’ll highlight a few things
that particularly resonate with me, and we might focus on these
features more in the future:
- Infinite scroll of images. Do an image search, and
just keep scrolling and scrolling through the results. More keep coming
up without you having to hit Next. I’ve long loved this feature at
Microsoft.
- Shopping search offers a variety of reviews and
other refinements and was recently combined with cashback offers. Check
out the opinion ranking feature that looks for reviews across the web
and categorizes them into positive and negative.
- Local search has a rich amount of data and maps, as well as opinion ranking
- Travel search integrates the Farecast service that predicts future flight costs
- Health search has dedicated medical information available licensed from placed like the Mayo Clinic.
Finally, a reminder of the companion pieces to this story:
Similar to Greg Sterling in his head-to-head piece, I’ve been
fighting my Google Habit for the past week and deliberately running
searches on Bing to compare to Google. The relevancy has been solid.
Sometimes Bing gets beat, but sometimes Google does, too.
HTC will be updating four of its smartphones to Android 4.0 starting by the end of March, according to the company’s Facebook page. PhoneScoop spotted the news, which shows the entire list of planned upgrades for next month and beyond:
Many
will argue that Android updates take too long — a very valid complaint —
and part of the issue is the software customizations that HTC and
others add to the phones. Instead of simply providing the Android
update, these company’s have to re-integrate, and possibly re-write,
their own additions. In HTC’s case, that’s HTC Sense; a software overlay
with custom apps and features.
Declaring a new era for the company, 
