Search Wars -- With Bing, Twitter and Facebook, There's More to Searching Google

Google is the royalty of search, so powerful that even its name is used as a synonym for searching. But funny thing. I was talking to someone this week who said he'd "binged" for something.

Bing? What the hell is Bing? Those were the exact words from another conversation I had last week, with my retired next-door-neighbor. He'd seen Bing mentioned in a newspaper article that he was reading. Knowing I'm connected with the Internet in some way, he came to ask me more after spotting me outside.

Bing, of course, is Microsoft's "new" search engine launched earlier this year to challenge Google. I put quotes around the word new because Microsoft has had its own search engine since 1998. Formerly called Live Search, previously called MSN Search before that, Bing is Microsoft's hope that the third time really is a charm. Bing brings a new look and some new features to the Microsoft search engine. Bing's also got a multi-million dollar marketing campaign backing it.

Is it working? Microsoft just went over a 10% share of the US search market for the first time in ages. That person I'd mentioned having "binged" something rather than "googled" it. That's just one anecdotal story, of course, but it's coming directly out of Microsoft's marketing campaign.

I'd say the word is getting out. But is moving the dial? The person who'd "binged it" told me he hasn't been back to Bing. Google still safely has 65 percent of search share for itself. Google's a hard habit to break.

In fact, Google's not just a habit. It's a virtual best friend for many people. In the past, we depended on friends, family and professionals for advice. These days, we turn to search engines for a range of issues, from deeply personal questions to trivia answers. Google is the leading search engine. Like a best friend, Google always there for us, listening and offering help. Google challengers like Bing are the equivalent of someone you don't know walking up and saying they want to be your new best friend. Thanks, but I'm covered.

Still, friends do change. And at the very least, the competition is making Google sit up and take notice. After many rave reviews about search features that Google itself already offers (wow -- Bing lets you track flights!), Google rolled out a new consumer-oriented guide to its various search products (we let you track flights too!). And if things like Bing's new search-by-picture feature were to catch on, Google would likely roll out its own version.

It's not just Bing that's making Google react. Facebook lurks out there on the horizon, a community now 300 million strong, with social networking information that potentially could be used to make for better search results. It's data that Facebook holds to itself, one reason behind Google pushing a rival OpenSocial movement. As people have turned to Facebook for "people searching," an area the company wants to excel at, we've also seen Google rollout improvements to its own people search capabilities. Gotten your Google Profile yet?

Then there's Twitter. The company is appearing in so many places these days, in the way Google did during its early years, that I sometimes say Twitter when I mean Google. But how's all that supposedly self-indulgent twittering likely to make Google nervous?

Well, lots of those tweets are actually searches. Many people tweet questions out to their friends, families and others they follow on Twitter. Plenty get back answers, quickly, and from trusted sources. Twitter's not just a new best friend. It's access to hundreds of best friends, for advice.

Outside of tweeting, there's also Twitter Search itself. Was that an earthquake? Is your cable down? Twitter can tell you answers to such "real time" events even faster than Google.

Let's also remember Apple. All that "there's an app for that" stuff? Change "app" to "google" and you better understand the revolution happening via the iPhone. Google has seen mobile searches skyrocket since the iPhone came in, helped by Google being the default search tool. But want restaurant reviews? The UrbanSpoon app gives them to you better than Google can. Eventful's app keeps you updated on local happenings. There's a "google" for seemingly anything you might be interested in -- but they're not all run by Google.

It's easy to assume that when it comes to search, there's Google and nothing else. That was never the case. Some of Google's former competitors have fallen by the wayside, but new competitors like Facebook, Twitter and literally hundreds of smaller companies -- along with re-energized ones like Microsoft -- keep it from resting on its laurels.

Follow Danny Sullivan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dannysullivan

Comments

[Jeff Yablon]

And while I've not changed, I have Bing enough in my mind that it could happen if Google doesn't do exactly what you say.

Jeff Yablon
President & CEO
http://answerguy.com

[ardeth2]

I've binged a number of times and have gotten useful links that haven't come up in an identical Yahoo search. But I generally either fetch (w/Dogpile, which raises money for dogs) or yahoo, and rarely google.

[Paramendra Bhagat]

Google has the market cornered alright.

[ChefLito]

Just to test their capability to track flights, I type in NW#799 (JFK to Narita, Japan) in both Bing and Google.
In Google, there were actually different choices reflecting different dates and origin of the flight, then it actually showed details of the flight, route, time of landing, length of flight, etc, albeit 1 month ago
In Bing, I was directed to farecompare.com, a website that sells plane tickets on the flight!
There - a great comparison -one of them provided info, the other tried to make money from me!
Bing should probably change it's name to Bling! A lot of glitter but not much else!

[DoubleFelix]

If a person wants to track flights, one doesn't go to EITHER Bing or Google. One goes to FlightAware.com or FlightView.com. Both of these sites have the live FAA feed up to the minute.

It is absurd that either of the search engines would be boasting about that. It would be like them boasting they have the best weather information, when obviously they don't.

[Danny Sullivan - Huffpost Blogger]

Many people are unaware of services like FlightAware. It's actually a really useful service that by entering your flight number into Google or Bing, you can get pointed to these services and grow new awareness of them, I'd say. Easy to implement, so why not?

[Ciaran Norris]

It's not ridiculous at all. Whenever I'm looking for the weather, I Google it and get the forecast right there on the page.

For millions of people search engines are the internet: the way they browser to websites they already know the addresses of, how the search for information, and how they answer questions like when's my flight due.

After all, how do you expect them to find the sites you mention other than by searching for them?

[unitron]

In the days before Google, every search engine I tried automatically assumed that I was looking for a way to spend money.

Google figured out that I was looking for information.

[DoubleFelix]

On a purely objective basis, Microsoft is at the back of the pack on search. I do search optimization for a major corporation. One of the things we pay close attention to is how quickly the various search engines recognize and rank new content. While all the other well-known engines (namely Google, Yahoo, and Ask) pick up new content within 7-10 days, Live -er- Bing consistently takes months to recognize the same information. Considering that the whole point of using search is to find information, it really is remarkable just how poor Microsoft is at that essential function. All the cute graphics in the world won't overcome that.

Fundamentally, Microsoft believes they can sell anything with a big enough marketing budget. But this is one case where that will not work. If their searches are less useful or timely, most people will stop using that service, no matter how many ads they run. If Microsoft is going to have a future, they will have to change that part of their culture. Results actually matter more than marketing in many cases.

And regarding Twitter, I don't care what kind of hype you want to give that system, it is still retarded.

[Danny Sullivan - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, next time there's some breaking event you're trying to confirm -- such as an earthquake, a local cable outage, is Gmail down etc, Twitter is the place to head. Nothing beats it. I'm not trying to hype it. It gets overhyped. But it is useful for certain types of searches.

[Ciaran Norris]

Until Twitter can figure out some way to work out the validity, authority or authenticity of tweets, searching on it will only be as good as the individuals in your network.

[myflashstore]

Google is great because it's simple and give you the right results you're looking for. I believe in healthy competition, but i'm not going to use anything other than google unless there is a new huge innovative idea, not just another search engine with a different name.

http://www.myflashstore.net

[TAFL]

Google sucks.

Bing sucks.

I use Cuil.

[bzb]

I use Cuil as well but it still doesn't have the vast research as google or bing does.

[Zeppo2]

Promising but immature. I reran searches using cuil on all my google searches for the past 24 hours, and found in many cases few or no results. This was a mix of tech and cultural searches. Some cuil results were returned in Polish, so I think that google does a better job of tailoring its results to the language and geographic whereabouts of its users.

I look forward to cuil's development.

[Aaror]

I presented my web site (www.tomekeeper.com, not that anyone cares) to both Google and Bing.
Google had a link up in a few days, once they realized I wasn't a flash in the pan (there were over 100 pages when I submitted the site). Bing took over a month, and even then I think it was just that I put text in the page titles (I am new at this, ok?). Bing also assumed that I meant timekeeper, and gave me results for timekeeper, everytime I searched for my site to make sure it was listed. I had to turn off the default assumption that I had mistyped. Google on the other hand presents the option.
In general, Bing seems like typical microsoft to me, "We know better than you what you want to do, so we will put you where we want you, and you will be happy with it."
Google seems more willing to listen to the customer.

[kejia]

the link in your comment is not working.

[unitron]

Let's see if it works this way:

http://www.tomekeeper.com