Microsoft Pundit Explains that Decision Engine Means Shopping Engine
September 2, 2009
I don’t have too much to say about this Mary Jo Foley article “Bing: Decision Engine = Shopping Engine”. The headline summarizes the author’s insight. The killer passage for me was:
In using Bing, I felt any kind of shopping-focused search worked well. When I was looking for restaurant information or airfares or the cheapest place to buy a blender, Bing worked like a champ. But when I used Bing to find specific articles I had written, or information about a particular product (not one I intended to buy), its results were fair to poor. When Microsoft rolled out Bing this spring and called it a “decision engine,” many of us pooh-poohed the Redmondians’ attempt to create a new niche in the search world that wasn’t already dominated by Google. But now I understand better why Microsoft characterized Bing this way: Microsoft consciously tweaked Bing to be a great shopping engine. “Decision engine” was a euphemism for shopping engine.
When I need to shop, I check out the Google’s product listings. If I strike out, I bop over to Amazon. I sometimes scout the deal listings. I have never used Bing.com to buy the type of gear I need. Maybe I should use Bing.com for products. I am not using it for any other type of information at this time. I rely on my Overflight service and the newer real time search engines, which I describe in a forthcoming Online Magazine article. When Ms. Foley balks, I don’t feel too uncomfortable with my light use of Bing.com.
Stephen Arnold, September 2, 2009
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Google research showing that over half of the most popular Google search queries are predictable in a 12 month ahead forecast (credit to @aciancone) can show Microsoft – or any [other] upcomer – what to concentrate on in order to make improvements in the major silos that cover the most-used search categories. http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-predictability-of-search-trends.html
What it does not show is whether you or I look for health or travel info and then want to see how Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” relates to the “Cities of Light” research of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island “…suggest[ing] that that the night-time light output of a nation as seen from space correlates to its GDP. This way of assessing economies could be useful where other data is minimal or misleading.”
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/mg20327215-nighttime-photos/1
It is the “long tail” of this kind of search, how ever much free costs, that helps translate into higher, highest ratings. Maybe I should Twitter that now.