Bada Bing, Bada Boom

Competing against other search engines won't be as easy as bada bing, bada boom, but Microsoft Corp. is going for it anyway. Microsoft announced it will be launching its new "Bing" search engine over the next few days and that it will be fully available worldwide on June 3.

While I haven't been able to try it out, it has received a couple of nice reviews by people who have. Microsoft released a promotional video, and I gotta admit, the search engine looks kinda cool.

(Sorry guys. I took down the video because it was slowing down this site.)

Initially, Bing will focus on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business. For example, if you punch in a flight number, it will give you the latest flight status information right at the top of your screen. For shopping purposes, it looks like Bing will make product reviews available, which I like. You can search for all kinds of images, which I also like since I do love me my photos!

But there's also some stuff on there that I don't know what to make of. Bing has some kind of cash-back program on purchases that you make through companies like Overstock.com. It's fine when my charge card offers stuff like that, but a search engine? I don't know. Bing also has a price predictor feature that will let you know if it thinks airfare to a certain destination will go up or down in the next few days. I know they have algorithms for figuring out stuff like that, but what if the price predictor is wrong. People who relied on that info to get a good deal would be ticked off.

Let me just say again, I haven't actually tried it out, so I may not know what the heck I'm talking about.

Microsoft is calling Bing a "decision engine," which kind of rubbed me the wrong way. That implies that you type something in there, and Bing will tell you what to do. Sure, life is just that easy. If Bing could actually make decisions for me - good ones - I would be on it all day long. I ain't even lying!

In the promotional video that I referenced earlier, Bing was called "a faster way to make informed decisions." That sounds a lot better and more realistic.