Microsoft's Bing Search / Decision Engine Just Don't Belong

“Friends” was a great show.  It had an incredible run, and when it was at the top of its game, it could be called the best show on television.  I like to think that I’m a witty guy with an acerbic wit and I’ve been called Chandler a number of times by friends and acquaintances.  The reference is to Matthew Perry’s character on “Friends”… Chandler Bing.  And to be honest, that particular Bing is probably the only Bing that will make it into the historical pantheon of pop culture.  I’m afraid that Microsoft’s new ‘Bing’ will pale in comparison.

I use the reference in pop culture to help me address the true issue that Microsoft faces.  You see, Google is much more than a search engine.  It’s a verb.  It’s part of the vernacular.  It’s become a household word.  So much so, that my Grandmother (God bless her soul) knew what it meant.  And isn’t that the litmus test for the true popularity of anything?  If your Nana knows about it, then everyone must.  This is the problem that Microsoft’s Bing must face, and the obstacle that it must overcome.  In my very modest opinion, I just don’t think that it can.

Estimates are coming in that Microsoft is employing a marketing campaign with a budget upwards of $100 million.  It seems that Microsoft subscribes to Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder’s business philosophy.  “If you throw enough money at it, no problem is too big.”  They’ve taken the lackluster search engine, Live, and they’ve reengineered and rebranded it in an attempt to sell it to the mass population as a fresh new take on internet search.  And while it may in fact be a ‘Decision Engine’, the problem is that it’s just not Google.

I recall taking a sales management course some years ago and the lecturer discussed the fact that there exists a keyboard with a layout that is dramatically different than the standard QWERTY layout.  The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard was so efficient and successful that it was adopted by the American National Standards Institute in 1982.  Why then, you ask yourself, has it not become the standard keyboard on all PC’s?  The answer is because of one universal and predictable concept.  Human beings are generally averse to change.  Even if something is far more difficult and cumbersome, if we’ve become accustomed to it, then we will likely continue to have it that way.  Now I’m not suggesting that Bing represents a more streamlined and efficient approach to search engines.  I’m just saying that even if it did, chances are that few people would navigate away from using Google.

Bing is going after the fact that the Google algorithm is not perfectly effective.  According to Abbey Klaassen,  in a recent AdAge article, Microsoft found that 42% of searches require refinement, and 25% of clicks are the back button.   But do searchers REALLY CARE about a slightly more effective SERP?  Probably not.  Going further in the article, Klaassen reports that Google conducted their own research by presenting searchers with results from other engines but presented them as their own by placing their logo and formatting on the page.  The end result?  Regardless of the query returns, consumers still preferred those results which were presented as ‘Google results’.  The lesson here is that most people are enamored with brands.

You know that a brand has become too big for competition when its name has taken a life of its own.  When you need to clean your ears you don’t use a cotton swab, you use a Q-Tip.  Whether or not it is actually made by Q-Tip is irrelevant… that’s just want you call it.  And when you blow your nose, you use a Kleenex.  Different product, same point.  When a brand becomes that big, it really doesn’t have any contemporaries.  When the name of a company or product has become a synecdoche for an entire industry the no amount of marketing dollars can do anything but scratch the surface of the market share.

I don’t know how well Bing works.  As of presstime for this article, I haven’t yet used it, not even for curiosity’s sake.  I imagine that given the amount of R&D and Marketing dollars thrown at it, it probably works quite well.  But what I do know with a clear certainty and evidential proof is this;  When I was looking up facts for this article I didn’t Bing the queries… I Google’d them.   And that’s the point.