Microsoft’s highly anticipated new search platform Bing has been unveiled, with the burning ambition to overtake Google as the leading search engine.
Bing launches officially on 3rd June and replaces Microsoft Live Search, which has reached its 3 year existence. The new platform will be a semantic-based search engine – something which Google has been the trailblazer for, so it will be interesting to see if Bing can come close. The concept of a semantic based search engine means that it can understand the concept of a query in order to provide the most relevant results.
The Microsoft Advertising UK commercial director, Chris Ward, believes that 50% of search queries are failing to meet consumers needs and Microsoft aims to solve this problem with the launch of Bing. A much more user-friendly interface will mean that searchers can access a wider variety of features such as dynamic navigation and suggestion guides on the left hand side navigation. There will also be video results that can played within the search results, making this a potentially very popular search engine to use. Bing will also integrate Ciao, the shopping price comparison site, which Microsoft bought last year. Utilizing these new features will give users a much more dynamic search engine.
According to NMA, Microsoft is aware that search will develop and they don’t believe that Google has won the search battle, despite admitting they have market dominance. Indeed, Microsoft believes there is still room for competition and Bing could well be the next big thing.
Without even trying out the new Bing platform yet, it is easy to see that it has the potential to be a strong Google contender, not least due to the catchy, memorable name. ‘Bing’ is sure to stick in people’s minds and with the power of Microsoft behind it, things do look good for this new search release. Of course, only time will tell if it has the desired impact, and like with most search engine changes, they take time to gain loyal users and we probably won't know the real success of Bing until a year or so from now when it is compared to the other search engines. The initial Bing launch might cause a bit of hysteria, which is expected, but the real test will be the longevity of the Bing reaction.
Find out more about Bing: Microsoft Unveils Bing
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