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Microsoft Technology

Microsoft Bing Search Launches Early Preview 310

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the badda-bing dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention that Microsoft has rolled out a preview version of their Bing Search site earlier than expected. Microsoft's hope at putting a dent in Google's ubiquitous search presence, Bing has several new features including Bing Cashback, Bing Video, and Bing xRank. "Bing Video is really great because of the new thumbnail video feature. Try searching for E3 at Bing Video and you'll quickly see how it works. Simply hover over a video and it starts playing instantly. This is fantastic from the consumer's point of view but what about the publisher? It's almost like Microsoft is stepping on their toes by deploying video search in this manner. Would a user still click on to the site if they can watch the whole video from within the search results? Fair use definitely comes into mind here. Perhaps there should be a 30second limitation on the 'thumbnail preview?'"
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Microsoft Bing Search Launches Early Preview More

Microsoft Bing Search Launches Early Preview

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  • Weird... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FredFredrickson ( 1177871 ) * on Monday June 01, 2009 @02:49PM (#28172405) Homepage Journal
    What's interesting, for me, about other search engines and their "usability" is the fact that my eyes are trained to parse google results. Google search results look official and informative. I can't use Yahoo or MSN (or Bing for this matter) because their search results look sterile.

    Sometimes it's the lack of information- as little as giving me the page size (7kb). Sometimes it's the margins. Bing has a left margin. Google doesn't.

    I'm not saying that these differences make a BAD difference, except this: Internet users learn quickly about scams. The first time I accidentally clicked on those fake search results on an ad-search mis-direction page, I learned to pick up on these differences quickly.

    In fact, it's subtle, but you can usually tell when a computer has an infection that hijacks your google results- because they don't look right (older infections changed the results, new ones redirect REAL results.. but that's a different conversation).

    The point is- my mouse won't go near, let alone click, on things that I think are tricks or advertisements. For some reason, I trust google a lot. So much that my eyes are trained to see it's results and disregard others. I'm reluctant to click on bing results.

    I encourage slashdot users to try bing out, and tell me it doesn't look foreign to you! Tell me you don't feel weird clicking it's results! The internet trains you quickly that you are to embrace familiarity, because you will be quickly punished for not doing so.

    • Re:Weird... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @02:57PM (#28172519) Homepage
      I encourage slashdot users to try bing out, and tell me it doesn't look foreign to you! Tell me you don't feel weird clicking it's results! The internet trains you quickly that you are to embrace familiarity, because you will be quickly punished for not doing so.

      I understand what you're saying, but I have a different perspective. Yes, the results page looks different to me but in fact that has meant I've paid more attention to it. I've been trying this out every so often and it's looking promising. Wish they'd get rid of the picture from the front page, but other than that I think I'm going to stick with this for a while. Its "Pages from the UK only" thing (insert your country here...) seems much more accurate than google.co.uk's, for instance. I might be imagining it, but it seems that way to me so far.

      My current homepage is google.co.uk. I'm going to set bing.com as my homepage for a week to see how I get on with it - so far it's found things that Google didn't and missed a whole load of Google-oriented spam sites, so looking promising at first glance. I'll see how it truly is after a longer term test.

      Cheers,
      Ian

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) *

        so far it's found things that Google didn't and missed a whole load of Google-oriented spam sites

        Until the spammers note that Bing's marketshare is big enough to set their sights on. It's the whole exploits are concentrated on the most popular software out there paradigm again.

        I do like some aspects (video included) of this though. I find the shopping to be about as good as Google's, nothing special. Could definitely do without the noisy background, though. I crave simplicity!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mccalli ( 323026 )
          "so far it's found things that Google didn't and missed a whole load of Google-oriented spam sites"

          Until the spammers note that Bing's marketshare is big enough to set their sights on. It's the whole exploits are concentrated on the most popular software out there paradigm again.

          Oh yes, I completely agree. It took a while for Google to become so spam-infested though, so hopefully we get a reasonable break in the meantime.

          I do like some aspects (video included) of this though. I find the shopping t

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by causality ( 777677 )

            "so far it's found things that Google didn't and missed a whole load of Google-oriented spam sites" Until the spammers note that Bing's marketshare is big enough to set their sights on. It's the whole exploits are concentrated on the most popular software out there paradigm again. Oh yes, I completely agree. It took a while for Google to become so spam-infested though, so hopefully we get a reasonable break in the meantime. I do like some aspects (video included) of this though. I find the shopping to be about as good as Google's, nothing special. Could definitely do without the noisy background, though. I crave simplicity! Indeed. Is actually the one thing putting me off making it my homepage, but I'm going to do it just to give things a try. Have been less satisfied with Google of late - not necessarily their fault as such, but there's so much targeting of them that's it's getting harder to sort wheat from chaff. Cheers, Ian

            Maybe the best defense against the spammer is multiple successful search engines owned and operated by different companies. In other words, I don't like the idea of a Google monoculture any more than I like the Windows monoculture and the instant widespread success of malware that it enables. With spammers and others who want to "game" the search engines, it seems to me that the same principle applies.

          • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Is actually the one thing putting me off making it my homepage

            Add these to your adblock rules:

            |http://www.bing.com/fd/hpk2/*
            bing.com#DIV(class=sb_adsN)
            bing.com#DIV(class=sb_adsW)

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Jake Griffin ( 1153451 )
          Some of the things I use quite a bit on google search are the calculator feature, as well as just asking a basic trivia question that comes up while I'm browsing. Both such examples fail on bing. "1+1=?" returned a bunch of nonsense, which is expected because bing doesn't have a calculator, but "How tall is Steve Nash?" returned his stats in the first result with a picture, which is nice, but it is not his height. You have to look to the third result to see how tall he is. Google on the other hand returns t

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rsborg ( 111459 )

      What's interesting, for me, about other search engines and their "usability" is the fact that my eyes are trained to parse google results. Google search results look official and informative. I can't use Yahoo or MSN (or Bing for this matter) because their search results look sterile.

      I just tried Bing (Did Chandler approve of this?) and it does look like Google, with the exception of the left border as you state (and that weird mouseover line-with-a-dot on the right hand side)

      Microsoft really did embrace

      • I think the Bing results page looks like one of those fake domain-parked search result pages. I saw it on a few customers' machines today and honestly thought that it was some new malware.

    • They look pretty similar to me. I know what you are talking about, but Bing does a pretty good job of mimicking Google.

      I did the "cheeseburger" test on it - if on Google, I search for Cheeseburger and the first page of links are all people trying to get me to buy cheeseburgers, I know Google's evilling up the results. If on the other hand I get all kinds of cool interesting things about cheeseburgers, I know I'm getting the "truth."

      The result sets look almost the same to me and the output is bland enough.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by brian0918 ( 638904 )
      If you feel at risk clicking on things, then certainly Bing's mini preview window should make you feel even more safe, not less. With that said, I'll probably be sticking with Google.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mprx ( 82435 )
      The left border definitely gives it a spammy feel. If I came across a Bing results page unexpectedly I'd probably mistake it for a link farm and immediately close it by mouse gesture without even reading anything. Would take less than a second.
    • Bing thinks I'm from the UK, presumably based on language settings, rather than in New Zealand, (which it could determine from IP.).
    • Fifth result from Bing on searching for the word "test", copied exactly:
      #
      *
      Domain Not Valid
      This domain is not valid. Hosted by Network Solutions.
      * test.test.com
      * Cached page

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mrdoogee ( 1179081 )

      My take on it is this: If it defeats the SEO bullcrap that gums up the first 2-3 pages of most Google results, then I think it will be a useful tool to me.

      SEO bullcrap= When I search for HP 4600 troubleshooting, I am not searching for:

      "Tired of troubleshooting your old HP 4600? Come to CrazyJimbosPrinters.com and replace that HP 4600 and stop troubleshooting! HP HEWLETTPACKARD HP PRINTER 4600 4500 3500 2840 PRINTER LASERJET

      I shouldn't have to make a "-$NOUN" string a mile long just to find pertinent information. If Bing cuts out some of this fat, then they have a new user.

  • And Slashdot couldn't even link to it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, 2009 @02:51PM (#28172425)

    I guess I'll just have to Google it.

  • I'll be the first never to say... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MoonFacedAssassin ( 539728 ) * on Monday June 01, 2009 @02:54PM (#28172473)
    just go Bing it!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by qoncept ( 599709 )
      Ya betta Bing it!

    • * The reponse from a Bing search: "Bong" (like 'Ping' and 'Pong')

      * A person who searches on Bing: A binger (or is 'banger' a better word?)

      * When referring to Bing search results in the past tense, it's a "Bang", like "Ring" and "Rang". Or maybe it's "Bung", like "Ring" and "Rung".

      Hm... I didn't mean to make rude comments about Bing, but the name kind of lends itself to some bad nicknames.

    • that said Bing.

    • Yea, did it and clicked the sponsored link.
      I wonder how much $$ flows from MS to Google per click.

      I guess I'll have to repeat ;)

    • just go Bing it!

      Is that Chandler Bing or Bing Crosby?

  • Meh (Score:5, Informative)

    by thetoadwarrior ( 1268702 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @02:55PM (#28172491) Homepage
    It's google with a background image, a flashy video preview and a not quite right page layout.

    • Who needs Bing? Google works. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by yog ( 19073 ) * on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:50PM (#28173403) Homepage Journal

      Bing's OK. But it's nothing special. Even if it's technically superior in certain ways to Google--I can't tell so I'll leave that for the intellectuals to tease out--there's no particular reason to switch.

      I have NEVER had a problem finding stuff on Google. Usually what I'm looking for appears in the first 10 hits. About 10% of the time, I need to rephrase my search, or add some "-" keywords to weed out some signal noise. But Google does the job, I'm used to it, and it seems to just keep getting better.

      There is so much power hidden inside Google's engine--stock quotes, mathematical calculations, language translation, mapping, document conversion, caches of deleted pages, paid links that I actually find useful, typo correction--the list goes on and on and on!

      What can Microsoft's search engine add to this stunningly rich resource that millions of us can't live without? What killer features does Microsoft give us? Some little tweaks here and there in the UI that may or may not make much difference. Some good ideas on supplemental information such as the "related searches" column on the left.

      Sorry, Microsoft, but Bing looks like MSN Search that's been tweaked a little. If Google didn't exist, you might have a winner on your hands, but this is just another "me, too" search system that will survive only as a niche product, funded by profits from the MS Office and Windows divisions.

      Any market penetration by Bing will probably come from super-glueing it to the Windows 7 desktop and Windows mobile handhelds, defaulting it on IE searching, and otherwise forcing it down customers' throats in whatever way they can, hoping a large enough population will be ignorant enough to just use the defaults. But now that "google" is a verb in the dictionary, Microsoft has its work cut out for it to hold and expand its little piece of the search market.

    • ...not quite right page layout. It is your own fault; shame on you for using Firefox instead of IE!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mu22le ( 766735 )

      you wish it was google

      take a look at this

      http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3604/3585051300_d23a37a32e_o.png [flickr.com]

  • To disable tracking (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01, 2009 @02:59PM (#28172555)

    Add www.bing.com/fd/ls/* to your filters.

  • bing is for porn (Score:5, Informative)

    by Trivial_Zeros ( 1058508 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:02PM (#28172615)
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/5423736/Microsofts-Bing-under-fire-for-porn-video-access.html [telegraph.co.uk] This might be how Bing will become popular - using Bing video to bypass porn filters!

  • Yah. Just find the stuff I want you to find (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:02PM (#28172621)

    Clicking or hovering over a video is inane crap. Do the hard stuff please, it involves some rather advanced mathematics and shit load of computers, not flash/javascript.

    Google are btw getting worse at finding the stuff I need, so there's an opening there.

     

  • Yeah but.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Utopia Tree ( 1040146 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:03PM (#28172637)
    www.BingIsNotGoogle.com

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jamesmcm ( 1354379 )
      Microsoft has been using a lot of recursive, GNU-style acronyms recently like XNA - XNA's Not Acronymed and now Bing - Bing Is Not Google.

      Maybe they think this is why everyone is using GNU now? :P

  • Google and Bing side by side.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Wescotte ( 732385 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:08PM (#28172713)
    comparison [flickr.com]
    • And that, my friend, says it all.

    • I noticed that also.

      Here are the first four "Search suggestions" for when I type "linux":

      linux
      linux windows
      linux microsoft
      linux vista

      Is this because Microsoft inserted itself into those search suggestions? Or is it because the majority of Bingers are using Microsoft products and thus the results are skewed ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sj0 ( 472011 )

      Hey, thanks.

      I've always avoided Live search and its predecessors because they're fucking useless.

      I was wondering if they'd made this new search engine less fucking useless. Obviously they haven't.

      It's a shame they didn't learn anything with the Vista debacle -- it doesn't matter how much you spend on marketing if your product is shit. It's still shit, and unless you're selling to farmers who actually want to buy shit, you're not going to sell your shit to anyone.

  • Huge amount of text ads (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Via_Patrino ( 702161 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:08PM (#28172723)

    What first impress me is the huge amount of ads in the search results. Searching for "sql server [bing.com]" I can only see two real results before having to scroll the page and is hard to distinguish the ads on the top of the page, from the real results.

    • Looks like a parking site or a DNS redirect. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by msimm ( 580077 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:44PM (#28173295) Homepage
      If I'd hit your link on accident I'd have assumed it was just another domineer squatting a high value (?) name. Who ever designed the page layout probably doesn't know the first thing about composition, my eyes can't seem to decide where to focus because all the blocks seem to be competing. Like an uglier version of google with over 1/3 of the top of the page (all you see before scrolling) dedicated to advertisements with not one, but TWO search boxes (the second simply to search within microsoft.com) which will probably frustrate and confuse as many users as it might help.

    • There's only one placement at the top of the page, one placement at the bottom, and a single text ad in the right column.

      Compare to the Google search of the same term: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%22sql+server%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10&fp=2Inaafc1UxE [google.com]

      Google has the one placement at the top of the page, virtually identical to Bing's. It has no placement at the bottom, given, but it has 8 placements in the right column.

      So Bing's total placements: 3. Google's: 9.

  • First impressions (Score:4, Informative)

    by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:09PM (#28172733) Homepage Journal

    Ok, seriously... what's with that 80 KiB background JPEG on the homepage?

    Image search is actually nice, though I would put the filters at the top instead of the left. The results leave a bit to be desired (tried "portable mame cabinet", hoping to find something I looked at a few days ago - no luck there). Also, scrolling down loads more pictures automatically. No need to go to "page 2" for more results. That's actually nice. The size/weight info on hover is a nice touch too.

  • And aside from the expanded snippet feature (which is pretty clever) I don't see anything new or exciting. WTF?

    • The video preview is nice (3 7-second clips play when you mouse over). I liked the expanded snippet too.

  • its all about the data (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jsnipy ( 913480 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:10PM (#28172743) Journal
    no interface means anything without the index and data to back it.

  • You want to know something funny? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by E. Edward Grey ( 815075 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:11PM (#28172761)

    I realized just now that if some other company had started up and created a new search engine called "Bing" I would probably find it really charming. But when Microsoft does it, it just seems like The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show. The human subconscious is a player-hater.

  • It may as well be Microsoft. Right now, Google has no real competition.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sj0 ( 472011 )

      You know what would help competing against Google?

      A good search engine.

      Maybe Microsoft can take all that money they spend rebranding their useless shitty search engine every 2 years and build a good search engine? I don't care what they're calling MSN Messenger this week, it's a great product and I keep using it despite the constant name changes. Similarly, I don't care what they call Live Search or Bing or MSN Search or whatever they want to call it this week, it's shit and it's going to remain shit until

  • Guess what microsoft did (Score:5, Informative)

    by Conspiracy_Of_Doves ( 236787 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:15PM (#28172821)

    Apparently, Microsoft has acquired the domain bingsucks.com.

  • Did anonymous even try the video search? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jabrwock ( 985861 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:17PM (#28172853) Homepage
    When I moused over video results, it seemed to do "skip play", fading out and in between jumps, as it "sampled" the video in 7 second clips. After 3 clips (from throughout a 20 minute video), it looped. Very nice for getting a feel for the video contents and quality.

    So I don't understand the beef about "Would a user still click on to the site if they can watch the whole video from within the search results?" because the user clearly can't watch the whole video from the search results.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hansamurai ( 907719 )

      I also rather like the image results, I can't speak for the actual images themselves, but the way they're presented is so much nicer than Google with a convenient dynamic load as you continue scrolling down the page. Live search did this too.

      Plus they find 1500 images for my site, five times as many as Google.

  • I Binged (Bung?) and found myself, which indicates that Bing works well ;). I got approximately the same stuff as with Google.

    • I binged my domain name, and after four pages, it still had not come up as a result. When I googled my domain name: first hit.
  • But it fails [bing.com] to answer this important question!

    Notice how Google gets it right [google.com].

  • ...hear Stephen Tobolowsky as Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day exclaiming "BING!" every time they read the word?

    Also, does anyone else ponder why Microsoft's product names are either really generic and boring, or totally cheesy and cringe-worthy?

    ~Philly

  • I just had a look. Man what utter dogshit. It has pretty much copied Googles thinking on minimalist, but even fucked that up with a picture background. Morons.

    To my mind, it's just a bad copy. And the name, man, which tard thought that up.

    I really hope MSN stays were it is, insignificant. Only because it would be nice to see MS NOT win due to $$$ for once.

  • Redundant results (Score:3, Informative)

    by Via_Patrino ( 702161 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:41PM (#28173231)

    It doesn't merge results from a same website.

  • With apologies to Dennis Miller... (Score:4, Funny)

    by sootman ( 158191 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @03:43PM (#28173275) Homepage Journal

    To learn more about Bing, type "bing search engine" into Google.

  • I tried Bing for about ten seconds and saw no immediate reason to switch from Google.

    Yawn.

  • ...and upon hovering over a video still, I get this:

    Error #2044: Unhandled AsyncErrorEvent:. text=Error #2095: SmartPreviewNetStream was unable to invoke callback onMetaData. error=ReferenceError: Error #1069: Property onMetaData not found on SmartPreviewNetStream and there is no default value.
    at SmartPreview()
    at SmartPreview_fla::MainTimeline/frame1()

    I guess nobody at MS tested their results with the debug version of Flash Player?

  • I predict this will be every bit as useful and well received as other Microsoft innovations like Microsoft Soundsmith and Bob! I'm sure plenty of people will use it just as long as they are paid to do so... but that isn't a very viable business model for a search engine.

  • The Sound of Annoyance (Score:5, Funny)

    by deanston ( 1252868 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @04:12PM (#28173765)
    Typical MSFT logic again. The official blog describes 'Bing' as "the sound of found". Problem is - I haven't started looking for anything yet, WHY IS THERE A SOUND? Furthermore, even MSFT admit that to compete with Google you need a name that can become a verb - so WHY DID THEY DESCRIBE 'BING' AS OFFICIALLY A SOUND (which is a noun)?? And then the name keeping chiming in your head - Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! - like a bad commercial jingle that is stuck there and makes you hate it, despise it, and swear never to touch it - no matter how good it actually is. I'm guessing that would be roughly 50% of the population that MSFT still will not convince.

  • HIJACKED! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Wisconsingod ( 995241 ) on Monday June 01, 2009 @04:41PM (#28174255) Journal
    Anyone else notice this ?
    some users of IE6, including yours truely, have had their systems "Hijacked" by Bing. No matter what registry settings are switched, Bing has become the default search engine. We cannot "Customise" the search settings. I wonder how many others have this problem or if anyone has a solution.
    Hopefully Slashdot will pick up on my story below (help me out, and comment on it)
    http://slashdot.org/submission/1011681/Microsoft-Forcing-Bing-on-Users [slashdot.org]

    • Re:HIJACKED! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Slothrup ( 73029 ) <curt@hageHORSEnl ... minus herbivore> on Monday June 01, 2009 @07:02PM (#28175853)

      Sounds like a feature to get you to stop using IE6 already, goddamn it!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kalriath ( 849904 ) *

      It's a mistake - that's all. If you read the Google thread you linked to, you'd see that it happens because auto.search.msn.com handles "address bar search" and uses the "prov" parameter to decide where to send it. The new engine doesn't handle the "prov" parameter, which no doubt they'll fix. They're not intentionally hijacking anything. In fact, they're not even hijacking anything!

  • It's the Luxemburgish slang word for "jail". I kid you not, as I am Luxemburgish (genetically only half) myself.

    Reminds me of the German school newspaper in my final school, that was called "Flapp" (pronounced "fluhpp")... which is Luxemburgish for "turd".

    I'm eagerly awaiting Microsoft Flapp to come out too. ^^

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