Most successful internet ventures (including but not limited to websites, services, videos, articles, etc.) are the result of organic growth turned viral. Before the Microsoft Network’s recent release of the new bing.com search engine I have never seen an online company/service want so virility and acceptance so badly.
Bing’s first major call for acceptance comes in the $100M+ that they are spending on marketing and advertising. Do a search for “search engine” and Bing is the #1 sponsored result. Couple that with Bing’s recent Bing-a-thon on Hulu, which turned out to be a rather promotional knock-off of MadTV. Add in a little bit of Bing’s latest advertising gimmick – fast forwarding a commercial break on The Daily Show, with the same thing planned for a few different TV shows in the future and you have a search engine desperatly crying for attention.
Bing’s second major call for acceptance comes in the form of banner ads encouraging users to “bing” their queries. While google has managed to become the default verb for internet search queries, they just kind of let it happen – no extra urging necessary. Apparently, Bing feels as though they should become a search verb as well – yet I don’t see the terminology catching on anytime soon. I just see more attention hunting. It seems that the cries for attention have worked to some degree. First time searches are up, but search market share remains stagnant.
I don’t really blame Bing for being such an attention seeker. When you are going up against a search engine that owns more than 2/3 of the market you will need as much coverage as you can get. Yet, in order to actually compete with a search giant you need to have an overall better product. While Bing is much improved, it still finds itself lacking. There are still quite a few improvements that need to take place before I start using bing at all, and it should all start with their boring logo. I will go as far as making Bing my default homepage if they put in an actual “bing” sound each time I make a search query and hit “enter”.
So here it is Microsoft. If you want acceptance, take the time to build a brand rather than re-inventing yourself every 3-4 years. If Microsoft really wants to do something notable for the internet, they will relaunch live.com. It is too good of a domain name to redirect to a needy subpar search engine.
{ 0 comments… add one now }
Leave a Comment