So Microsoft's BING is here -It’s great that there’s solid movement from Google’s suitors- however the enormity of the task cannot be under estimated. Will the £100 million investment in ‘Bing’ be enough to curtail Google’s dominance?
It really comes back to market share, MSN may well develop the best platform for advertisers and users, however if the volume isn’t there – as it is with Google – then ultimately this is going to inhibit their growth. It looks and feels like a nice product (very Google like!) I like the fact that they’ve stepped away from the rigidity of Live and MSN search centres, the packaging of this as its product gives it credence (in my opinion) as a serious search engine. Too often have we heard of updates to MSN and live search and ultimately they’ve always failed to deliver.
I do doubt that their obvious attempt to emulate Google in such a way is the way to go, Yahoo have a slight edge by reinforcing their capabilities in semantic web (something that Google struggles with) while it’s nice, I cannot see any real USP – cheesy tag line like it’s a ‘decision engine’ not a ‘search engine’ won’t sit well either!
