Just Bing It

Thursday, June 4, 2009

You know you've got a winner when your name becomes a verb. How many times have you heard, "Just Google it." Well, that parlance is about to change.

Bing, Microsoft's new search portal, debuted this week to rave reviews. Bing is different than other search engines because of what Microsoft calls Bing's Decision Engine. It gives much more useful and relevant information than competitors, without having to enter arcane search terms. Take a look at this example to see a side-by-side comparison of Bing and Google search results.

I especially love the travel results that Bing offers. Microsoft has merged several technologies together to give easy to consume results with truly meaningful information. For example, a search for airline flights on Bing not only returns the best flights, but predicts whether prices are going up or going down, similar to FareCast.

You can also check flight times simply by entering the airline and flight number in the search window, such as "United 9120" or simply "ua 9120".

The image and video results are very cool, too. Image search results are returned on a single scrollable page rather than dozens of pages you have to click through. Video search results actually play in the results window by simply hovering your mouse over the video.

I'd like to find a way to create a custom portal page that allows me to dashboard the information I'm interested in, such as news, market reports and RSS feeds. I'm still learning all the cool things Bing does, but so far I'm very impressed. I recommend you Bing it to find out for yourself.

Bing. It's not your father's search page.

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