Technically Speaking

For about a month now Microsoft’s new foray into search has been popping up all over. The service, Bing, is dubbed a decision engine, in that it will help users find the most relevant content closer to the top of the returned results. In this article, I plan to do some binging and put this new engine to the test and offer a few first impressions after using the service for a few weeks.

Note: I have not been exclusive to Bing since its release as I find myself visiting Google out of habit.

Search throughout the Microsoft.com properties has been replaced by Bing. The old live search is gone and Bing is the wave of the future, and with good reason. The idea is that the queries entered by users need to bring back quality information before worrying about the quantity of links returned.

This gets done reasonably well; when I search for Ice Cream Sandwiches in Google I get a result of 17,700,000. The same search at bing.com returns 10,700,000 records, many of which are the same.

Figure A below shows the result count at Google and Bing.

Figure A

17 million and 10 million results for ice cream sandwiches

The results, while still massive are more focused when relevant queries are entered, the ice cream sandwiches search was to show the sheer number of results returned. For example, suppose I am going to visit Oshkosh Wisconsin for the EAA this summer.

When I enter Oshkosh WI into Yahoo I get a link to the city website and a few other links at the top of the results. I also get a pane of sponsored links that organizations pay to have show up first. While these might be quite helpful, I would rather see things relevant to visiting the city like the weather and things in the area than just the businesses who pay the most money,

Entering the same Oshkosh WI into Bing produces a different experience. Sure I still see search results and the city of Oshkosh website and a few sponsored links on the right (albeit far fewer links), but there are also related links in the left hand pane as well as links to list restaurants, businesses, the newspaper, maps, and other things that might make my trip to Oshkosh more pleasant. Figure B shows the Yahoo and Bing results for Oshkosh WI.

Figure B

The Yahoo and Bing search results for Oshkosh WI

Big deal so the search works, what makes Bing better or at least different from other sites

From using Bing I have come to notice the little things that just appear on their own. For example, recently I was traveling to a major city, when I connected to the Internet to look for someplace to have lunch and read the news; I noticed that the news page on Bing had the local news pulled off to the top right. The significance of that, for me, was that I did not need to tell the site any information about where I was located. Using my IP address (or the public IP address of where I happened to be connecting) it added local news. Finding a restaurant was also quite nice as Bing returned several results based on where I was located.

Using my Oshkosh WI search from above, I clicked the link for restaurants, and a list of local places with their phone numbers is displayed at the top of the screen. Figure C shows the restaurant results for Oshkosh WI.

Figure C

Places to eat in and around Oshkosh Wi

What else is there… search and?

Bing also allows a user to preview video from any sites if the video is returned as a result. The easiest way to show this would be on the news site. When a video appears in the list of results, clicking the window for the video will play the video right from the search results.

Bing also has a travel section which can help travelers find affordable fares when flying around the world. Using technology from farecast.com and MSN travel, Microsoft has created Bing Travel. This site will help users find the best prices for moving around the world that are available on the web. Figure D shows the opening screen for Bing Travel.

Figure D

Traveling with Bing

Even though the name of the site sounds like a startup created by characters in a 90’s sitcom, the search decision engine created by Microsoft really does get quality results. I encourage all of you to put Bing! Through its paces today.

Welcome to June.  Today Microsoft launched Bing, it’s new approach to search and so far, I think it is pretty slick.

Suggested links based on your query are placed along the side of the page, offering a list of additional items. 

For example, searching for Green Bay produced a list of popular Green Bay related sites as expected, but the list on the left provided other things I might like to know about Green Bay such as restaurants, weather, airport information and other things.

Figure A below shows some of the results returned for Green Bay.

Figure 1

The site also includes related search terms in the left column to help find other resources based on what is entered.

I have also noticed that Bing is location aware.  For example, when I searched for Star Trek, the movie listings for the area I am currently in appeared.  Helpful when travelling and looking for things near by for sure.  Figure B shows my current results for Star Trek.

Figure B

Surely I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface on the features brought out in Bing, but I will give it a shot and see if Microsoft can catch the competition.

So what does this have to do with IT Management?

The answer to that question depends on how you look at it.  Taylored results and additional suggestions, beyond sponsored links, can be very helpful.  It seems to me that the search engine is smarter in calculating results and delivers more useful content.

Imagine attending a conference for your company and being able to rely on your search engine to check flight status, get a cab, find reasonable dinner choices, and get the baseball scores for the game of the local baseball team.  Saving time in looking for local results based on your IP address.

Giving your users and staff a predictive search tool could be a huge benefit if the technology Microsoft is using is well maintained and stays afloat.  Predictive search results might be a boost to the productivity of employees because they will spend less time searching for results and more time actually using found information.

I am excited to give Bing! its due.  Check it out at http://www.bing.com and leave your thoughts or usage suggestions in the comments.