13 Feb
Bing has always been a wannabe Google but they seem to have taken some odd directions in their pursuit of the biggest dog on the block. They take negative swipes at Google announcing that their results are biased while they themselves provide more information from NBC than any other news group. Bing is of course owned by Microsoft which is in a pretty tight relationship with NBC and MSNBC.
If I were in charge of the Bing public relations department I would think twice before throwing stones at Google for something that I know my own company does to a fault. Self-promotion and cross-endorsements are not new and companies that are in the business of making money can’t be expected to not take advantage of the situations that they create to further their goals of making a return for their shareholders.
Then Bing makes a deal with Yahoo in 2009 for 10 years so that when you search on Yahoo you may as well be searching on Bing. This is completely obvious and dilutes the value of each rather than improving the value of each (in my opinion).
Bing also offers more advertising on each search page to further reduce the amount of organic search results per page which strikes me as funny when you are throwing accusations of bias toward your competitor. But, what is Bing supposed to do when they are in full competition mode for market share and failure is not an option for a company that has been the leader in most of its endeavors.
Think back to when Microsoft launched the Xbox? Nintendo had Mario and Sony had an install base that was trouncing on everything that Nintendo tried to do. Microsoft was the last to enter the party and I for one thought that they had picked the wrong battle. Each Xbox was sold at a loss of $100 so that they could compete with the plan of making up the difference and then some by selling games for their fledgling gaming system.
I remember thinking “Boy if I could lose money on everything I sold, I could be rich!”
Bing has posted losses for years now but they don’t seem to be slowing down on their determination to capture more of the search business. In Q3 of 2012 Bing reduced the loss by about half from the year before which is a good sign, but they have to stick with it and not be distracted by the noise of mobile and their efforts there as well.
Overall Bing is a good thing for the internet as it would be a pretty lonely world if Google was the only search engine. The other players have all thrown in the towel and without competition Google could falter so we should all be routing for Bing to succeed.
Matt Steinmuller is an experienced copywriter with a passion for great content, real estate, and fantasy football. He is a Towson University graduate with a degree in Marketing.
6 Comments
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Vince
February 14, 2013How do you stop a bully from messing with you? You “Bing” him in the nose as hard as you can. All in. Burned bridges. All or nothing. It seems that these are the qualities one needs to exceed to the ranks of the super rich and successful. Of course if one fails in this type of venture, it’s usually not a pretty sight. Is it any wonder that 95 percent of the population plays it safe? Keep swinging for the fences Bing.
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Michael
February 15, 2013There used to be an unwritten rule that you don’t attack your competition, but I guess that went out with the Pepsi challenge and now the internet is a feeding ground for disgruntled or malicious people to do whatever they think passes for criticism?
I for one think that calling the kettle black doesn’t make the pot any less. Thanks for your input!
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Randy
February 20, 2013The last 2 laptops I purchased had Bing as the default browser. Go figure as they both ran windows…I wonder what percentage of people change this setting. Do you think that in the end whoever wins over the hardware manufactures and operating system designers has a better chance of winning the competition to be your search engine? You really only have a choice if you know there is one to be made.
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Michael
March 12, 2013Randy you are stepping on sacred ground when you talk about Microsoft manipulating and monopolizing their entrenched position with windows being installed as part of the purchases that you made. I would check under your bed tonight before I went to sleep. you might find an angry and homeless Surface Tablet.
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Matt Steinmuller