Monday 1 June 2009

Bing launches this week

Wednesday 3 June sees Microsoft launch Bing, its new search engine– although Microsoft describes Bing more as a “decision engine”.

If you want to know more then there are a number of write-ups around, or try looking at Microsoft’s
press kits or view a short (less than 3 Minutes) video.

However, the initial launch will focus on the American market, with only a Beta version available in the UK – where we’ll have to wait around another 6 months before we see a version of Bing optimised for UK searches.

I had the opportunity to have a demo of Bing when it was known as Kumo, and I was impressed by the potential of Kumo to make better sense of the search results. But the demo had a very strong American bias, and worked best to the demo script – adhoc departures from that script showing up the early stages of the development.

Only in practice will we be able to see if Microsoft has come up with a Google-beater. It will be interesting to try out Bing in anger – even if the results will be focussed towards users on the other side of the Atlantic....

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