David Pogue: Give Bing a Fling

So much is being written about Bing I can hardly keep up. Virtually all of it grudgingly good. Take, for example, David Pogue’s rave in the NYTimes today. He kicks it off with this:

For the last 15 years, Microsoft’s master business plan seems to have been, “Wait until somebody else has a hit. Then copy it.”

I know that sounds mean, but come on — the list of commercial hits/Microsoft knockoffs is as long as your arm. PalmPilot/PocketPC. Netscape Navigator/Internet Explorer. Mac OS X/Windows Vista. Apple iPod/Microsoft Zune.

You’d think Microsoft would feel a little sheepish after awhile.

And now we have yet another me-too effort. It’s something called Bing, and it’s the latest iteration of Microsoft’s multiyear attempt to imitate Google.

The name, presumably, is supposed to evoke the sound of a winning game-show bell. The cynics online, however, joke that Bing is an acronym for “But It’s Not Google.”

Here’s the shocker, though: in many ways, Bing is better.

See for yourself, he says, and recommends bing-vs-google.com. Very cool. I bookmark that for a quick-search shortcut.

The cute snark is part of Pogue’s trademark style. We lap it up. He gets to the meat:

For starters, how’s this for a dream feature? Point to any search result without clicking; a pop-up balloon shows you the first few paragraphs of text on it. Without leaving the results list, you know if it’s going to be helpful. Simple and irresistible.

Here’s another example. On Google, search results usually appear as a long list of blue text links. Occasionally, a photo appears, too. Or, if there’s only one possible answer for your query (weather, stock price, sports scores, street address), you get that answer right at the top: a five-day weather forecast, a stock chart, game scores, a street map. In those cases, you don’t have to click through to anything on the search results list.

Bing does all that, too. But it also expands those “let me make sense of this for you” results — in a big, beautiful, very successful way — by introducing a new panel to the left of the search results.

For example, if you search for a celebrity’s name, that space offers an attractive table of common-sense links: News, Movies, Quotes, Biography and Images. When you search for a sports team, you see Schedule, Tickets, Stadium, History and Wallpaper. When you search for a medical condition, that table offers Causes, Remedies, Treatment, Prognosis and News.

Aren’t those almost always the answers you’re really looking for?

That panel also lists Related Searches, which require one click and zero thinking. If you searched for “barbecue,” it offers Barbecue Grills, Barbecue Recipes, Barbecue Ribs and so on.

Finally, the same panel maintains your search history, to save you the trouble of reformulating your quests. (It also offers Turn Off and Clear All buttons, for the benefit of — well, you know who you are.)

His conclusion:

People won’t start dumping Google en masse; Google is a habit. Everyone already knows how to work it, and it may be built right into your Web browser. But if you value your time, you should give Bing a fling.

Put another way, even if Bing really did stand for “But it’s not Google,” that is not necessarily an insult.

RELATED: ReadWriteWeb finds Users Are Willing to Try New Things:

According to the latest data from Compete, Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, is still going strong, though even a month after its launch, the majority of Bing’s users still switches back and forth between Google and Bing. About 66% of Bing’s users also use Google search, and this number has held steady over the last few weeks. 30% of Bing’s users also use Yahoo Search, and about 4% use AOL Search. The most interesting aspect of this report, however, is that Google’s users seem to be far more interested in trying out a new search engine than users of other services. READ ON

Reauters headlines, Microsoft’s Bing search wins share from Google.

AND ALSO Microsoft Gets Twitter Search First:

Microsoft search technology guru Sean Suchter announced that for a few thousand celebrities and notable figures, Bing will offer you a chance to read their tweets as they post them in real time. Search for Ryan Seacrest, search-engine expert Danny Sullivan, or Al Gore (we’re not kidding; these are really the examples Suchter used), and Bing will flash you a box with their latest tweets, as well as a link to their Twitter page. Google, meanwhile, offers just a link and a considerably more outdated tweet.

Why does this matter to ordinary Web users? We’re still trying to figure that out ourselves. But Bing and Google clearly think that offering search results that are updated second by second is the next frontier, and they’re racing to capture it and the ad revenue that will come with it. BusinessWeek reporter Rob Hof suspects that Bing’s new coup will give it an extra edge in the new search wars. “[F]or now, Bing’s Twitter results are one thing Google doesn’t offer, and that’s likely to help maintain the recent positive buzz about Bing,” he writes.