Bing 2.0 Going For Beauty Over Brains
Microsoft looks set to roll out an updated version of Bing, dubbed Bing 2.0. What we should expect from this update, which may occur in a matter of weeks, are some new visual and interactive features within search results using Microsoft’s SilverLight technology. This could mean pictures and other rich interactive applications such as video while viewing and browsing search results. It was pointed out by one Microsoft employee’s tweets that this may be prominent within the maps feature. “BING 2.0 terrific !! watch out guys ! bing + silverlight in maps = amazing !! goodbye google”. Goodbye Google could be a little extreme at this point but the thought of pictures, videos, and other rich media to help browse search results sounds to me like a great addition.
Bing has just introduced its new visual search feature, which is a new approach to displaying results. Users who go to Bing.com/visualsearch can now see about 50 various galleries of images to browse through. This allows for the visual browsing and sorting of certain categories, which for searches on things like hand bags or sports teams can make perfect sense. When conducting a visual search for NHL hockey teams, this is the initial results page:
The plan is to eventually integrate the visual search results into the Bing Home page as well as the filters and navigation bar. This method of search would definitely make browsing through various categories easier and faster, but only for certain categories. This way of searching would only work well for broader searches for brands, places, or people and it is clear that Bing is still centred on the design, usability, and transaction focused model.
What confuses me is why Microsoft is not focusing on Bing’s accuracy in this next update. Steve Ballmer promised at least two Bing updates per year, so it is safe to say that Bing will develop very quickly. However, the main criticisms of Bing so far have been revolved around its accuracy. The reviews concerning user experience and aesthetic quality have been excellent, so why not steer attention towards improving accuracy with this next release? In a quarterly software competition by uTest called Bug Battle, testers from around the world tested Google, Yahoo, and Bing for bugs and ranked them based on accuracy, speed, real-time relevance and usability. Here are the overall rankings:
However, Bing got great feedback on design and usability metrics, with responses such as, “GUI is very user friendly – images, videos and map displays are great.”, and “Can view video right within search results page. Cool hover-over effects.” It seems pretty obvious to me then, that Microsoft should be focusing on the brains of Bing in this next release and improving its accuracy, speed, and capabilities. It could be that they feel Google is just too good in these areas and therefore want to focus on Bing’s strengths instead. Steven Weitz, a director in Microsoft’s Bing group, said Microsoft is currently doing monthly updates to Bing, a clear effort to improve its ‘brains’. Maybe Microsoft is simply keeping the spotlight on these flashy new interactive search modalities, and effectively away from speed and accuracy, until they have caught up a bit. The race continues…
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