Posted by The Blogging Desk on Fri, May 06, 2011
Microsoft:
At Research In Motion’s annual Blackberry World on Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced on stage a new alliance between Microsoft and RIM, outlining how the two companies can work together to help people make better decisions with Bing on BlackBerry devices. Central to this collaboration, Blackberry devices will use Bing as the preferred search provider in the browser, and Bing will be the default search and map application for new devices presented to mobile operators, both in the United States and internationally. Also, effective Monday, Bing was designated the preferred search and maps applications with regular, featured placement and promotion in the BlackBerry App World carousel.
Hurrah! Our dreams have been answered. Just kidding! Nobody uses BlackBerry's anymore. Or maybe you do, and have just unsubscribed from this RSS feed. In which case, sorry.
Does this partnership with RIM mean that Microsoft doesn't trust their own phone platform in the enterprise? Maybe. Even so, why partner with a platform that is seemingly losing ground in the enterprise field? The iPhone is moving fast and furious into companies all over the world while nobody is jumping onto BlackBerry anything for their corporate needs.
I like the Windows Phone platform, but it's just not selling as MS had hoped. At least not yet. But, RIM? Will they even have a smartphone market in 5 years? I'll bet you $10 that RIM ditches their own smartphone OS and signs with either Microsoft or Android. A whole $10!
Do you even know how many Frappé's that can buy? About two and half, actually. Don't wait until it's too late to get your own corporate mobile network secure. You know want to end up like the PSN network, do you?
Posted by The Blogging Desk on Tue, Feb 08, 2011
Matt Cutts:
First off, let me say that I respect all the people at Bing. From engineers to evangelists, everyone that I’ve met from Microsoft has been thoughtful and sincere, and I truly believe they want to make a great search engine too. I know that they work really hard, and the last thing I would want to do is imply that Bing is purely piggybacking Google.
Earlier that week on the Twitter, Matt Cutts pointed to a blog post that talked about an undercover sting operation by Googler's to show that Bing was stealing Google search results. They did so by doing meaningless queries to results they had set up themselves. Here are a few pictures. Pretty damning evidence, No? Cutts even confronted the Bing team during a live streamed conference he had the next day. It was pretty awkward. Bing said they do not copy their results.
They responded.
We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop. We have some of the best minds in the world at work on search quality and relevance, and for a competitor to accuse any one of these people of such activity is just insulting.
We do look at anonymous click stream data as one of more than a thousand inputs into our ranking algorithm. We learn from our customers as they traverse the web, a common practice in helping to improve a wide array of online services. We have been clear about this for a couple of years.
The short of it is that Microsoft learns from your click-data while you use IE. If you're inputting information into a Google Toolbar while in Internet Explorer, it will learn from that. It will learn what your searching for - and finding - and will use that for Bing. The problem was that Google created some results that would make Bing look really, really, bad. It made it look like they were outright copying results from Google. But is that the case?
Microsoft has said that it lays our these items in their Terms & Conditions when you use Internet Explorer. What do you think - is that copying? We can chat about it over a free IT Support Quote!
Posted by Matt Kolowski on Tue, Jan 26, 2010
As shocking, disturbing and downright depressing of a possibility, it just may happen. That is, if you believe the internetz. And I sure as heck do. How do you think I found out that I could write a check in red ink?
If you believe the WSJ, NYT, Engadget, Gizmodo, Slashgear, TechCrunch and People Magazine, then Bing may just become the default search engine for your beloved Apple product. (Ok, maybe not People Magazine) Why on the planet Earth would Steve Jobs shake hands with the raving lunatic that is Steve Ballmer on such a deal? Simple, the Google.
Google is quickly becoming what Microsoft wishes it was 5-10 years ago. Heck, Google is what Microsoft wishes it was today. And they’re scrrrd. (slang for ‘scared’) Granted, MS has the business side pretty much locked up, and some solid, positive feedback going for their new Windows 7 operating system (Note: I work in IT Support. Of course I had to throw Windows 7 a bone. Give credit where it's due) . What else do they have? You don’t hear many people saying, ‘Oh boy, my HTC Windows Mobile phone sure is hella sick! Did you play that Scrabble application , yet? OMG!” Gross.
While Bing is certainly making some inroads in the web search department, it could definitely use all the help it can get. You don’t hear many people say, “I’ll just Bing it.” Ok, I do. But that’s more of a sarcastic joke than an actually statement of fact. Being the default search engine on iPhoneOS would be a big jump in an installed user base, if not completely ludicrous.
Does Apple really see Google phones as such a big threat that they are willing to switch to Bing as the iPhone's default browser? I can’t image so. And even if they did, it would be the equivalent of seeing Batman and the Joker strolling through the park hand in hand with a picnic basket. Batman laying down the blanket while Joker furiously waves his hand at a nearby beehive to protect their chicken salad.
To quote the great ‘Johnnie Cochran Chewbacca Defense’ from South Park; “It does not make sense!”
To find out what Trigon's IT Services can do for your Mobile Phone (including your new Bing-equipped iPhone), contact us at solutions@TrigonIT.com
Posted by Matt Kolowski on Mon, Oct 26, 2009
Wait sorry, they also signed a deal w/ Facebook. Still nothing? Me neither.
On October 21, Microsoft announced that it had formed a non-exclusive partnership with both Twitter and Facebook, to include live status updates of searched topics into its results. Microsoft will be using a certain algorithm to determine how to show tweets by relevancy. My guess is whichever includes: "OMG Windows 7 is MZING LOLZ RT!".
I don't know about you, but when I search for the nutritional value of a small ice-coffee from Wawa, the last thing I want to see is some doofus posting a picture of himself pouring an iced coffee AT Wawa. Or, some tween remarking: "LMAO I need a coffee, SOOO TIREDZ". Get out of my Bing results, jerks.
Though, truth be told, when I saw a bunch of people talking about a balloon in my Twitter (which is awesome, BTW), I instantly went through the trending topics to see what everyone was blabbling about. And it only took me seconds to be instantly made aware of what was happening. I'm certainly not going to close my Twitter app, and fire up Bing Mobile to see why there is a boy flying across the US in a flying saucer. That's precisely what the hordes of intelligent people I follow are for.
That and telling me what they're eating for breakfast that day. Lord knows I can't LIVE without knowing that.
(It was eggs.)
Posted by Solutions Center on Wed, Sep 23, 2009
I'm a diehard Googler. But just a few short days ago, I found out via our blog that Bing, Microsoft's self proclaimed "decision engine", now includes a Visual Search that is still in Beta Testing. Being as curious as I am, I had to test it out. So, I navigated my way to www.bing.com/visualsearch. So far, there are about 50 categories, ranging from Politicians to MLB Players, that the Visual Search feature is available in. One of the main categories displayed on the page is "Celebrities".
Naturally, as everyone would, I figured I would immediately search for pictures of that toe-thumbed, mega-hottie-babe Megan Fox. So I narrowed down the category to female actresses, and then narrowed it down again to ages 20-25. And voila, an image list of female celebrities between the ages of 20 and 25 showed up. Once I had the filtered list of images up on my screen, I scrolled through until I found the image of the glorious Miss Fox herself.
Awesome, right?
Maybe not.
After the initial shock wore off of how cool a visualized search was, I immediately began to recognize the downsides. Sure, it was interesting to be able to interact with a different type of search interface, but wouldn't it have been a hell of a lot easier (and a lot more practical) to just go to Google and type in "Megan Fox"?
Yes, definitely.
Or at least I think so.
One of my coworkers shared out a glimpse of hope, however. He pointed out that it may be useful to find someone whose face you may know, and that you know a little bit of general information about. For example, we agreed that we both didn't know who played Ferris Beuller, but that we would be able to come up with a general description for him and recognize his face. So, again, we searched Celebrities. This time we narrowed it down to "Actors" between the ages of "35 and 50". After scrolling through a bunch of faces, BAM - there he was...Matthew Broderick. We found our man.
So, Visual Search may be cool in that sense, however, we decided it is still not totally useful. As easy as it was to find Matthew Broderick, it would have been a lot less time consuming to just Google Ferris Beuller and find him that way. All in all, Visual Search is definitely a unique and different idea.
But sorry, Bing, my allegiance still lies with Google.
Posted by Jon Pentecost on Wed, Sep 16, 2009
Have you "Binged" yet? Microsoft has come out with its own search engine in order to compete with the top search engines, Google and Yahoo. Microsoft, however, does not call Bing a search engine. According to the website (
http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/channels/bing), it is a "decision engine". This means that it helps you search more effectively and find exactly what you want, rather than sifting through what Google and Yahoo think you are looking for.
In order to enhance the experience, you can install Microsoft's Silverlight, which makes the website more aesthetically pleasing, while also providing videos that you cannot view without Silverlight. Silverlight smooths out the fonts and provides better graphics for the website.
Just released is also a new beta portion of the decision engine. It is called Visual Search. You can search by images, rather than text. Right now there are limited items that you can visually search through, but the content will be expanding and the website will always be improving once more searches are completed. In order to view the images you currently can search upon, go to http://www.bing.com/visualsearch.
If you have not checked out the site yet, I recommend visiting http://www.bing.com/ and performing a few searches. See how quickly you can find the information you are looking for, rather than using Google or Yahoo.
Posted by Solutions Center on Tue, Aug 11, 2009
Wow, we weren't kidding in earlier blogs when we alluded to letting the search wars begin. Well, now that Microsoft has upped the ante by not only launching an extremly successful "decision engine" Bing, and teaming up with Yahoo!, Google got a little pissed off. Microsoft just woke a sleeping giant. Google wants its market share back and they are ready for war.
What exactly does Google have in store for us? How about a better Google. What - is that even possible you ask? Well, unbeknownst to many, Google just announced it has been working on a better, faster, more robust search engine. Basically, it's the newest version of Google and for right now it is still under construction. Here is what Google has to say about it's newest updated search engine:
"For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google's web search. It's the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits "under the hood" of Google's search engine, which means that most users won't notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we're opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback."
What does all of that mean to the average user? It means they are specifically working on improving indexing speed, the accuracy of your searches, and the size and scope of your searches. I apologize that this didn't bare all of the juicy details, but we will keep you posted as they are revealed! Check it out here: New Google Search. Stay tuned, this could get exciting.
Posted by Matt Kolowski on Wed, Jul 29, 2009
And they plan to meet Google at SummerSlam!
Today Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a 10 year partnership. What does that mean to my tablet-toting Grandmom? Well, not too much because she won't notice many changes on either site. Bing will be powering Yahoo search results from now on. Yahoo will stick around to become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' advertisers. But I don't think Gammy cares much about that.
If anything, this shows that Microsoft will do anything to compete with Google, even if it means teaming up with their closest competitors. (Yahoo was the #2 search engine, while Bing was #3) Alot of people seem to like Bing and the way it takes them through their search results, but for people that use Yahoo for that kind of thing...well, hopefully they weren't too attached to how Yahoo did things. Yahoo will be using Bing algorithms for searching. But don't be too upset, because Microsoft now has access to the Yahoo blueprints on how they've been doing things, so you could be getting the best of both worlds.
I was a big fan of hotbot.com back in the day for seaching, my 56K Modem and I were cock of the walk. What about YOU? Did you use Yahoo for searching?
Or have you already turned to the Bing side of things?