Bing : Different lipstick, same pig.

Microsoft has put out it’s “new” version of a search engine in hopes of taking on Google. At the risk of sounding like a nay-sayer from the start and a contrarian, can I be blunt?

They do not stand a chance of eating into Google’s market share lead. Seriously. Is E-bay getting serious erosion from others in their class? Nope…they are THE garage sale of the internet.

Craig’s list, the same. They are THE classified ads for the internet.

And Google is THE search engine. Google is now a verb. Note to Steve Ballmer. Get over it.

More importantly, BING is more lipstick on M-soft’s pig of a search engine. Maybe a different shade, but it does not change the overall spammability of the engine itself.

Yes, they now have added LOCAL search and have 10 packs (or 7 packs or whatever) ala Google. The difference? Go to BING and type in your city followed by Homes…

You will often see the local search that contains Funeral Homes, Home Depot, a real estate website (maybe), and even sometimes group homes for wayward youth.

Nice.

Search engines are entirely about relevance. Bing has clearly in my mind not made enough of an improvement to change ANYONE”S behaviour to use them instead of others. And that is the acid test.

Will their modest imrovements from the old MSN, Live, etc make enough difference to sway user behavior? Not in my opinion. To do that you would really need to change who you are or more importantly how the game is played.

That goes well beyond changing the shade of lipstick.