BING - after launch in Australia

Bing is a new search engine designed to do more than merely help you find information. Bing organizes search results and provides refinement tools that help you overcome information overload, get things done and quickly bring you to the point of using that information to make an informed decision.(Read More …)

Microsoft considers that Bing’s ability to present a wide selection of relevant results will give users better, faster and more accurate searching than Google.

Now an Australian version of Bing has been launched with visitors, MS revealed that Microsoft Australia is holding down bing.com.au while other Microsoft subs have snapped up bing.co.nz , bing.co.uk, bing.ca, bing.sg, bing.hk, bing.de and bing.fr.

 

"As Bing was in development and various features were tested with consumers, we found that people really enjoyed the daily homepage image. It provides something inspirational and interactive every day, which has resonated really positively with our audience," said Alex Parsons, director of MSN Products at ninemsn. 

The site has already won an internet following with some fans collating daily images for others to view.

Australian technology blogger Long Zheng, who has archived all the images that have appeared on Bing since its launch in May, praised Microsoft for providing "an opportunity to explore and learn without searching at all".

"I decided to host an archive of the images to make it easier for people to browse and appreciate the daily backgrounds provided on the Bing website, even if they don't visit the Bing website daily or do not use Bing at all," he said.

His said his archive had received nearly 90,000 hits since its launch a little over a month ago and had roughly 2000 hits a day.In spite of its new-found following, Bing made no significant inroads into the Australian search engine market during June, internet researcher Nielsen Online said.

With 2.4 million Australian visitors, Bing trailed far behind Google's total of 10.1 million, and both Google and Yahoo7 (1.5 million) increased their search engine traffic from the previous month.

However, so far Microsoft’s Bing seems to have garnered way more interest in Australia, India and China than it has in the Unites States (which comes in at number four on this list). Bing is twice as popular in Australia as it is the United States, and more than three times as popular as it is in Canada.

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Bing Video Search

Bing – a overview

Microsoft's (MSFT) new search engine Bing, and more reviews are in.

Let's go to press:

Los Angeles Times writer David Sarno: "This more elegant and intuitive approach to search will help consumers distill useful information on commerce-friendly topics such as shopping, travel, health and local business, Microsoft said. ... Its redoubled focus on commerce-related search is probably a reflection of the online advertising market, in which sellers pay more to put their ads in front of consumers who are already shopping."

Seattle Times columnist Brier Dudley: "When Bing demonstrates its fancy tricks during specialized shopping searches, it feels more like a collection of Web 2.0 sites than a traditional search engine. Instead of the simple list of results flanked by ads, with a few pictures or videos mixed in, Bing gives clusters of results with buttons, tabs and charts. ... Bing makes you wonder if Microsoft executives regret selling or spinning off some of the Web services it built in the 1990s, such as travel site Expedia and entertainment directory Sidewalk. It basically re-created some of their features to give Bing its bling. Imagine what might have happened if it had rolled them into MSN Search back in 2000."

CNet editor Rafe Needleman: "I planned to write this story with the headline, 'Bing isn't Better,' but the new engine won me over. The new game in search is parsing information and displaying it in the engine itself (see Wolfram Alpha for the extreme example of this). Both Google (GOOG) and Bing, and other search products, have areas where they will collate and format information for you, instead of just linking you to external pages where the data reside. Bing does an extremely good job at this in several popular areas--like product reviews, movie listings, weather, travel, and stock prices. ... Google keeps improving in the area of in-search collation and display as well, but Bing makes Google look complacent, and that's not good for Google. For the moment, Bing's on top in this game."

Forrester Research marketing analyst Shar Van Boskirk: "Search engines have long been used as gateways to Web content.  But as a decision engine, Bing introduces a search engine that actually delivers Web content without sending users away to other destination sites.  A search for "airfare to Denver" shows available fares, pricing trends, a buy or wait recommendation, and a link to purchase.  Since we expect other search engines to follow Bing's lead, this means marketers should expect increased costs for search and display ads."

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Cheap Flights, Hotels, Destinations | Bing Travel

Microsoft search engine Bing’s next offshoot - Bing Travel, it has flight and hotel search, airfare price predictions, travel news and community, travel deals, and more.

Bing Travel helps consumers make smart travel decisions with flight and hotel search, airfare price predictions, travel news and community, travel deals, and more.

It  is one of the initiatives that Microsoft is launching to differentiate Bing from traditional search engines which mostly provide information and links instead of tools that help visitors make more informed decision quicker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to comprehensive flight and hotel search, Bing Travel leverages Farecast technology to provide airfare Price Predictors and hotel Rate Indicators.

“Bing Travel has a simple goal: help people make smarter, more informed decisions regarding travel,” said Hugh Crean, general manager of Bing Travel. “Travelers face plenty of challenges — from airport security and luggage restrictions to finding their hotel in an unknown city or trying to speak a foreign language. Researching and booking travel should be simple and easy, and now Bing Travel is here to help.”

According to Redmond, 45 percent of people use a search engine to select a flight or hotel. Out of those, a survey by Bing Travel pointed out that 52 percent of potential travelers search three or more sites before booking their airfare, and 42 percent of travelers spend between one and four weeks weighing their travel options (17 percent even spend more than one month).

Microsoft wants to reduce that time by centralizing comprehensive results based on searches for travel information in one place.

How it Works?

1. Search multiple travel sites for better pricing.
2. Check the price predictor, so that you know when to buy.
3. Compare and refine results (narrow results).
4. Buy directly with suppliers and save.

Some of Bing Travel’s key features include the following:

1. Price Predictor
• Bing Travel uses Farecast technology to analyze more than 175 billion airfare observations and predict whether the price of a flight is going up or down.
2. Rate Indicator
• The Rate Indicator analyzes historical rate data from thousands of hotels to determine whether the current price is a good deal, or not a deal at all. People can view a city map with details for each hotel, color coded by Rate Indicator data.
3. Travel Deals
• Bing Travel features up-to-the-minute flight and hotel deals for nearly 40 cities around the world. For example, people will see that flights to certain destinations may be a record low, or more than $150 less than the average for a particular route. People can be sure that all Travel Deals are based strictly on science, not marketing.
4. Fare Alerts
• Most airfare price drops last less than 48 hours, so people need to be ready to jump when a fare falls. Fare Alerts will notify people if the fares for their trips drop, allowing them to catch lower fares.
Visit Bing Travel at http://bing.com/travel
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