Extra Future[Jesper answers my call][link]. Makes sense, now.
[link]: http://waffle.wootest.net/2009/07/29/pr-speak-msft-yhoo-bing/ “waffle → Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Microsoft and Yahoo!’s Joint Choice. Value. Innovation. Announcement About Sharing Search Engine and Advertisement Technology”
[Earlier today Yahoo and Microsoft signed a 10 year deal][deal] which sees Yahoo not developing any new search technologies, and using Bing for it’s algorithms. Like most of you, I fail to see how reducing the main Search players from 3 to 2 creates “more innovation”, but does anyone even read these press releases anymore? [The official site for the deal][site] is begging for a PR-Speak-To-English translation.
Also important: [What happens to BOSS, Delicious, Search Monkey and Yahoo’s other search products][link]? (via [Andy Baio][andy])
[link]: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_of_yahoo_news_delicious_boss_more_innovation.php “Yahoo’s Bing Deal Puts Delicious, BOSS & More at Risk”
[site]: http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/Default.aspx “Press Site for the Deal”
[andy]: http://waxy.org “Waxy”
[deal]: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/its_official_microsoft_and_yahoo_announce_search_deal.php “Microsoft and Yahoo announce search deal”
[Given their size, It is simply impossible that someone at Microsoft didn’t know about this][link]. The only question is how deep into the process were they, and how many people were afraid to speak or were told to sit down and shut up.
[link]: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/kayak-bing/ “Kayak to Bing: Stop Copying Us! – Update | Epicenter | Wired.com”
[Searching for “sex” returns the phrase “the search sex may return sexually explicit content. To get results, change your search terms.”][link] Meanwhile, [according to Google Trends, nobody searches for “sex” more than India][google].
[link]: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/06/2338233/Microsofts-Bing-Refuses-Search-Term-Sex-In-India?from=rss “Slashdot Your Rights Online Story | Microsofts Bing Refuses Search Term “Sex” In India”
[google]: http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex “Google Trends: Sex”
[Microsoft’s new, absurdly-named, search engine has launched][link]. Two things: How is this better than their own live.com, and how is this better than Google.com? It seems to bring nothing new to the table aside from the little popups on the right side of the results (which I’m sure is where “bing” came from. Bing! Bing! We’re lucky they don’t have a sound effect with them. It plays in my head, regardless.) and that isn’t super useful. It’s cramped, and boring at the same time.
The text-search engine space desperately needs some serious competition. Something like [TinEye][tineye] is doing for image search. The question is: What else do you do to search? I have a feeling the answer is not going to look anything like Google or Bing or even [Wolfram Alpha][alpha].
[link]: http://www.bing.com/ “Bing”
[tineye]: http://tineye.com/ “TinEye”
[alpha]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/ “Wolfram Alpha”