Bing Ain't Got That Thing

Microsoft has let the Bing out of the bag a couple of days early (it is scheduled to go Live tomorrow), so I took it out for a test run, using a few search terms that came to mind, and then comparing that to results on Google.The first thing that came to mind was Google Chrome and HTML 5, because guess who timed its Wave announcement in order to suck some of the oxygen used for oohing and aahing out of the room?

I typed "HTML 5 Chrome" into the search box, and what Bing gave me for the first three results had to do with car wheels, then a site selling chrome thermometers for saunas and steam rooms, chrome table legs for dentists and veterinarians (you can't make this up), more car accessory stuff and then, finally, a link to a blog post on Google's Chrome, followed by more car accessory stuff for Corvettes.

The same search term on Google gives you nothing but Google Chrome results -- and not a word about Corvettes.

But I thought, okay, maybe the search term was too easy for Google and unfair to Bing because I was using keywords -- Google has me trained that way -- and Bing is set up for natural language searches. So I tried again with "what is HTML Chrome?" (Okay, I butchered it a little, but the search engine should get the picture.) This time, the first two links were to Google sites where I could download Chrome, but the rest of the links were back to cars -- and a nod to the war-gaming usage.

There was nothing to answer my question -- not a good sign for a search engine that is supposed to provide instant "answers to obvious questions."

Maybe, I thought, technology isn't Bing's forte. How about a good old historical reference? First thing that popped into my mind: Alexander the Great. Why? I don't know -- Alex Rodriguez didn't hit a home run last night. Anyway, Alexander the Great it was.

On Google, predictably enough, the first result was a Wikipedia entry, followed by a blog post, some .edu and .org domain sites, and then some random sites discussing Alexander the Great. Nothing wrong there, but nothing awe-inspiring -- nothing that got me jazzed about reading up on Alexander the Great.

Same search term on Bing returned almost exactly the same set, although in a different order (ah, that famed Microsoft secret sauce -- whenever shall we learn its mysteries?).

But there was something else too -- a pretty cool list, in the left-hand column, of "related searches." Now that could be very useful, if it actually answered your question. But when you click on one of those links, it just reformulates your query and returns another search result page. It's an updated version of "searches related to...".

Bing did suggest a search on Antipater, which I thought was pretty cool -- I haven't thought about Antipater since college -- but it also suggested a search on John Candy. I happen to be a pretty big John Candy fan, and I can't think of a single sketch or movie that's relevant. Clicking on that link didn't help elucidate the mystery.

The one thing Bing does nicely is provide a summary of the contents of pages it brings up on the search result page, which could save you the trouble of clicking on a link that doesn't have the information you're looking for. But in terms of moving the needle of Microsoft's search market share forward, Bing's hardly the thing.