14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's next-generation search engine, scratch that, decision engine, is now live worldwide. The Redmond company started rolling out Bing, formerly codenamed Kumo, on May 28, 2009, and is right on track to completing the introduction of the evolution to Live Search by June 3rd. However, users from a variety of markets worldwide that have visited the Bing home page today, June 1st, have no longer been greeted with the Bing introductory video, but by a semi-functional search interface. I say semi-functional because the Bing rollout is yet to be completed and as such some of the features are missing. Still, the search decision engine is ready to give its users a taste of what to expect from the future of Microsoft Internet search engine.
“We’re introducing a new kind of search that goes beyond traditional search engines to help you make faster, more informed decisions. It will do this by combining a great search engine (with powerful new features to improve your results for any query), more organized results, and unique tools to help you make important decisions. We think of Bing as a Decision Engine,” revealed Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president, Online Audience Business Group, at the end of the past week.
Mehdi promised that Bing would come to the table to resolve the problems that searchers were stumbling upon, including poor relevance and queries left unanswered, because of the lack in evolution of search engines. Essentially, Bing is no longer envisioned as a tool to connect a certain keyword to a website, but instead to deliver comprehensive information that will help users make their decisions.
“So why did we pick Bing as the new brand name? We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. It needed to be like the product — optimized for the Internet. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world. We like Bing because it sounds off in our heads when we think about that moment of discovery and decision making — when you resolve those important tasks. And frankly, the name needed to clearly communicate that this is something new, to invite you to come back, to re-introduce you to our new and improved service and encourage you to give it a try,” Mehdi added.
As I said, not all the features of Bing are live around the world. Users will be able to notice that the highlights for the Bing backgrounds are missing, that they cannot navigate between backgrounds, and that some of the filters and tools are not available as of yet. By June 3rd these problems will be remedied. Still, for the time being, watch the video embedded at the bottom of this article for an in-depth presentation of Bing.