Digital Thoughts @ Wesstyware

As everyone who listens to the Internet knows by now that Microsoft has launched Bing, their new answer on how to search the Internet without having to use Google. Now, I could sit here and discuss the new features of how Bing is better/worse than Google, but I think there is enough out there already. So, as opposed to writing another article about the same thing that everyone is discussing, I have decided to talk about something different: site design.

A Quick Canadian Note

Something you should probably note is that I am Canadian and that means I am using the Canadian version of Bing. All the features that people are writing about, such as the shopping helper and the travel helper, are not yet available to me. Keep that in mind when you say to yourself, “Wessty, you should use Bing because of all its new features”.

Internet Search: A Quick Review

I think it is fair to say that for the past many years Google has dominated the search engine market. According to Market Shareby Net Applications, as of June 1, 2009 Google owns 81.5% of the market. That is a pretty significant piece of the pie if you think about it. Even without the statistics how many companies have their company name become a unique verb to describe the service they provide? I am sure we have all heard ourselves or someone say, “Just google it” or “I will google that when I get home”. Whether you love it or hate it, the world loves Google. Plain and simple.

Microsoft has taken a kick at the search market prior to Bing, that being Live Search. Going back to the statistics provided by Market Share, Microsoft Live Search was rated fourth overall. Although that sounds pretty impressive, the unfortunate fact is that everyone below first place has to split the 19% of the search market that Google doesn’t own. In the case of Live Search, it only represents about 2.5% of the market. Although a victory to some degree, my thoughts are that Microsoft had higher expectations than that. At least I would hope so.

The Brilliance of Bing

When I heard that Microsoft was taking a second shot at Internet search with Bing, I started to think about what could anyone, including Microsoft, possibly bring to the table that would make them stand out. Search is search, plain and simple. Google’s search engine, although mysterious, works exceptionally well. Even if Microsoft comes up with their own mysterious, but amazing, search engine of their own what would make me change from Google to Bing? I mean, if I want to move over to another search engine, there will be the learning curve that I will have to overcome. Regardless of how easy it is to use, why would I bother investing my time in learning something that is going to give me the same results as the search engine I already know?

And there in lies the brilliance of Bing: there is no learning curve. Bing.com is simply the next version of Google.com. If you can use Google, then you can use Bing. Check out these screenshots:

View Full Album

You cannot deny the similarity between the screenshots. The layout of the sponsored link sections, the header, the details of the results. Bing just added the left bar that contains extra information that is useful to your search, like your previous searches, related searches, and so on. One of the great uses of the left bar is with image searches. When you select an image from the results, you are linked to the page containing the image BUT the rest of the image results appear in the left bar, allowing to you continue to browse through them without clicking the back button.

The Microsoft Advantage

The other advantage Microsoft has with the release of Bing over Google is the fact that Microsoft can make changes to their Google-esque to add new features without upsetting their entire user base as there really isn’t a user base yet.

You may not think that it is a big deal, but I’m sure we have all heard of the issues that Facebook has been dealing with over their UI changes. At eBay, they have an entire usability department that is dedicated to studying how they can make changes to their UI to make it more efficient while not upsetting their user base. These changes aren’t dramatic ones, but more like things you may not even consider to be important like resizing or repositioning a button. These small changes effect millions of people instantly. If they are not exceptionally careful with their changes, then they can upset millions of users instantly.

Going back to Google and Bing, if Google were to make drastic UI changes to utilize the left side of the page, then users may not like it, or feel that it was implemented incorrectly and thus change their default search engine.

My Point

Here it is: Bing is a great search engine not just because of all the features everyone is talking about right now, but because of its similarity to the world’s most popular search engine. I think the real brilliance in Bing is that Microsoft took what worked and made it better. Sure, some are going to look at this and say that Microsoft cheated or something like that. The reality is that Microsoft took did the smart thing: they chose not to reinvent the wheel, but to make it better.

Although I am a huge supporter of innovation, developers should remember that it isn’t the only way. When you are working on a project, make sure you know what is out there, what works, and what needs to be fixed up. That knowledge might be what makes your application the next Google….or Bing.

Catch you on the flip side.