Information Overload
June 7th, 2009 by Jon Taplin
We’ve been talking about Twitter world recently. I must say the new Microsoft TV ads for their new search engine Bing are pretty good.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZhQ0JLYy3c]
We’ve been talking about Twitter world recently. I must say the new Microsoft TV ads for their new search engine Bing are pretty good.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZhQ0JLYy3c]
Personally I think their big, expensive marketing campaign is misguided, and shows Microsoft as being out of touch. When was the last big TV advertising push by a search engine? The Yahoo ads.
Well. I think anyone who has any familiarity with the search engine industry knows how that one played out. Google kicked Yahoo off the hill and has not been seriously challenged since.
So far, the best marketing for a search engine has been putting out a superior search engine.
Personally I think their big, expensive marketing campaign is misguided, and shows Microsoft as being out of touch. When was the last big TV advertising push by a search engine? The Yahoo ads.
Well. I think anyone who has any familiarity with the search engine industry knows how that one played out. Google kicked Yahoo off the hill and has not been seriously challenged since.
So far, the best marketing for a search engine has been putting out a superior search engine.
Tried Bing. Thought it was a little better than Google. Dan’s right advertising will not make it successful, but it will get people to know about it. Google isn’t invincible (remember Chrome). Microsoft isn’t invincible (remember Zune). If MS offers a credible alternative to Google’s only real product, (ok maybe G-mail). This will be good for consumers.
Tried Bing. Thought it was a little better than Google. Dan’s right advertising will not make it successful, but it will get people to know about it. Google isn’t invincible (remember Chrome). Microsoft isn’t invincible (remember Zune). If MS offers a credible alternative to Google’s only real product, (ok maybe G-mail). This will be good for consumers.
Tried Bing. Thought it was a little better than Google. Dan’s right advertising will not make it successful, but it will get people to know about it. Google isn’t invincible (remember Chrome). Microsoft isn’t invincible (remember Zune). If MS offers a credible alternative to Google’s only real product, (ok maybe G-mail). This will be good for consumers.
And Bing has just overtaken Yahoo for second place.
And Bing has just overtaken Yahoo for second place.
And Bing has just overtaken Yahoo for second place.
Wait guys, Bing is a little better. It’s true.
The SMART thing you can do, is SWITCH over your default browser settings and hand your traffic to Bing.
Right now Google needs to be forced to improve their search, get rid of spammers, SEO crap, link famrs – competition is good – it takes you 10 seconds to switch.
switch. you can always switch back when GOOG makes the changes.
Wait guys, Bing is a little better. It’s true.
The SMART thing you can do, is SWITCH over your default browser settings and hand your traffic to Bing.
Right now Google needs to be forced to improve their search, get rid of spammers, SEO crap, link famrs – competition is good – it takes you 10 seconds to switch.
switch. you can always switch back when GOOG makes the changes.
It is more interesting to know what makes Bing a “decision engine” instead of a search engine. Not many care how the search engine works if it works as well as its competition.
For a light looksee, I ran queries I am familiar with and it is doing a better job of pulling together results that I am unfamiliar with, so somewhere they are doing a better job of indexing and that little advantage gets much bigger when one is doing research.
It is more interesting to know what makes Bing a “decision engine” instead of a search engine. Not many care how the search engine works if it works as well as its competition.
For a light looksee, I ran queries I am familiar with and it is doing a better job of pulling together results that I am unfamiliar with, so somewhere they are doing a better job of indexing and that little advantage gets much bigger when one is doing research.
“Google needs to be forced to improve their search, get rid of spammers, SEO crap, link famrs”
Huh?
“improve their search”–that’s pretty nebulous
“get rid of spammers” OK all search engines need to get rid of spam. Let’s see how good bing is at it. Hopefully both bing and google will do better.
“SEO crap” I wonder if you know what you’re talking about here. Google rewards sites that play by some pretty good rules and don’t try to slime their way to the top of the result list with cheap tricks. They also reward sites that use “SEO crap” like friendly URLs that make it clear to both the search engine and visitors what the page is about.
A case might be made that Google can be high-handed in their dictates of what SEO should be, as well as secretive about just how they determine their search rankings. High-handed and secretive: sounds like Microsoft.
“link farms” Google punishes you if your site is linked to link farms. Refer to “SEO crap”. That’s one of the foundations of SEO: don’t try to use cheap tricks to drive your site to the top of the list.
“Google needs to be forced to improve their search, get rid of spammers, SEO crap, link famrs”
Huh?
“improve their search”–that’s pretty nebulous
“get rid of spammers” OK all search engines need to get rid of spam. Let’s see how good bing is at it. Hopefully both bing and google will do better.
“SEO crap” I wonder if you know what you’re talking about here. Google rewards sites that play by some pretty good rules and don’t try to slime their way to the top of the result list with cheap tricks. They also reward sites that use “SEO crap” like friendly URLs that make it clear to both the search engine and visitors what the page is about.
A case might be made that Google can be high-handed in their dictates of what SEO should be, as well as secretive about just how they determine their search rankings. High-handed and secretive: sounds like Microsoft.
“link farms” Google punishes you if your site is linked to link farms. Refer to “SEO crap”. That’s one of the foundations of SEO: don’t try to use cheap tricks to drive your site to the top of the list.
I use ask.com for my searches.
What with Google having access to all my mails, and MS to most of my instant messaging, I’m more than happy to not give either my search history too.
Also ask.com has AskEraser – a feature that erases all your search queries from ask’s servers within hours.
That’s something that neither MS nor Google are willing to do (or even consider).
I truly dread the day when Google’s servers might be compromised. The amount (and type) of information available about all of us is staggering.
Dan, you caught me again, I don’t know what I’m talking about.
SEO/SEM crap as in automatically generated splogs and buying of others brands keywords, that distances the searcher from what he/she is most likely are looking for… or meaningless content silos bulked up with robots to gain “organic traffic,” and lead generation that dangles answers just outside the grasp of reader, until they part with private data.
Anything that can happily serve the masses 80% of the time with reduced and big branded mainstream results (ala what Bing aims to do) will force GOOG to start to punish much of the above.
I have to agree with Morgan. Over time, Google’s gaming of its own engines to provide payoffs to paying customers has become ever more obvious and mechanically insidious.
We had a LONG debate about these problems in the XML world some years ago and it was mind boggling how many savvy people a) said it couldn’t be gamed and b) Google wouldn’t do evil.
So yeah, healthy competition from Microsoft to Google can’t be anything but good for awhile.
A long time ago, Dan Connoly and I talked about how the W3C would have to proceed to keep from being sucked into the marketing monster. I told him they’d have to live like monks because as soon as the web became profitable (it was a loser then), it would be gamed front left and center because that is how ANY cultural phenomenon that takes off evolves.
Question Jon: When you first began to road manage major acts, did you see the day when Dylan would be put on TV and made to perform (unhappily it looked) in front of an orchestra, screamers and big lights dressed like a clown?
And why did he sign that contract?
My eventual summation was in my blog a few years ago in the midst of BushCon when I said we would have to recognize the value of our values. They enable us to say “No” when we understand we lose more than we gain, and “No” when we understand others will lose more of value to them than we gain for ourselves.
We can’t always know when we do evil in the sense that consequences can’t always be specified and even then, how far ahead. We can know when the act violates our own values and that is about all we can reasonably be expected to know and act on.
Otherwise we are left with raw social competition as the sorting hat and for many economic competitions, that is as good as it gets short of enlightened and persuasive leadership whom we accept, trust and will follow.
Having fun running info through Google, Bing and Wolfram (where appropriate) and getting a big stew of possibilities. Like Morgan, love seeing the competition push the envelope and hope MS doesn’t do their usual short attention span response to something innovative.
Also discovered a Wikipedia like version of the OED called Wordnik that’s a delight. Love having easy access to pronunciations of obscure words.
It’s appears that the interwebs are maturing into a reasonable research option (done carefully with real library time included.) I think in terms of my undergrad options in a small state college with a really spotty library. Would have to road trip to a metro area if I really wanted to do current journals and on a limited budget that only happened a few times.
“SEO/SEM crap as in automatically generated splogs and buying of others brands keywords”
That’s not what I call search engine optimization. It’s what I call cheating. It’s the opposite of optimization. I deplore it.
Now let’s see whether Microsoft does the same thing. I’m by no means one of those people who hates and derides everything Microsoft, no matter what. But I don’t trust them, either.
Watching the ad I noticed some nice features on the travel search. Checking the site the feature I noticed wasn’t available for the flight I was checking.
It didn’t matter. The way they have travel booking set up is by far the best I’ve ever used. Incredibly easy to change parameters about your trip details. You can sort the results on price, departure time, transit time and more.
I’ve now booked a trip to Italy and the process was great.
A litlte competition is always good, though maybe it’s just the cynical programmer in me, but I’d guess the noticeably better results may simply be due to the MS offering being a new engine.
Google’s engine has been in the wild for quite a while, so alot of it’s weaknesses are known and exploitable.
I’d wait a while to see if the results comparisons hold up over the next few months. ‘Cause if there are two words that go together, it’s Microsoft and exploit… =)
‘‘Cause if there are two words that go together, it’s Microsoft and exploit… =)’
Great quote Ryan!
http://www.findresolution.com/2009/06/paid-links-are-steroids.html
Its too thin a line Dan.
If Bing focuses on the short tail – and just makes it about displaying all the big site’s stuff, and fades back on the ad revenue space, they’ll take some real wind out of Google’s sails. I think it is possible for MSFT to capture 40%+ of search – making it default in IE8 and onward in Windows 7.
So it’s either MicroSploit or MicroSplat…
In my experience, everything Microsoft touches turns to shit … Hotmail, MS Office, operating systems … While I don’t like Google being the only game in town, an alternative like Microsoft reminds me of the 2004 presidential election. I’ll stick with the Giant Douche for now …
Daniel, you can certainly root for Google, but give your traffic to Bing – it will force GOOG to drop the shit.
Morgan you may have a point, but your last post shows that you’re a cheerleader for MS and prejudiced against Google. I don’t doubt that bing will take up some market share, at least for a while, maybe for good. Maybe there will be some genuine competition, and I’m in favor of that.
But when it comes to trying to muscle everybody else out and put a lock on the market, MS is king.
As for that link.
A quote:
I’m fully on-board with those sentiments. If I understand this article, he’s talking about paid link farms. From what I understand…I’m not an employee of Google and I don’t have access to information on just how they make page rankings…Google punishes sites that use link farms.
But I repeat, I’m all for competition in the search engine market. Google has too strong of a grip, and it’s better for everyone in the long run, even Google, if there’s a healthier level of competition.
Sigh. Clearly the bolding was supposed to be on only a single word.
“But when it comes to trying to muscle everybody else out and put a lock on the market, MS is king.”
Interesting claim. Can you prove it?
I ask because the very same thing was said about IBM when they were the Big Bad.
Dan, I’m not a MS fanboy. I use GOOG for everything including docs and corporate mail, I’m desperately trying to leave opera for chrome, and I’m certainly gonna love wave.
BUT, I’m pissed GOOG about the stuff above, and I don’t like that they’ve had to be forced to respect brands. I like brands. I like brand advertising.
And after use, I personally think Bing has better results display, I encourage everyone to swap out defaults, throw their traffic to someone else (even MSFT), and force GOOG to find their profits elsewhere.
It won’t take much for GOOG to clean up its act.
“Interesting claim. Can you prove it?”
No, Len, I can’t.
You win.
I took your class two semesters ago – thought you would enjoy this:
http://www.freshcreation.com/entry/whats_next_in_media/
Hope all is well.