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Microsoft Bing Search Engine Marks First Anniversary
by Nicholas Kolakowski
Search Screen
When Microsoft launched Bing on June 1, 2009, its immediate differentiator from Google was the highly colorful search screen.
Homescreen Tabs
Bing also tried to differentiate itself from the start with homescreen tabs for very specific search categories, such as Videos, Shopping, News, Maps and Travel. Microsoft later revamped many of these tabs to present the user with more options.
Bing Maps
Microsoft also introduced Bing Maps, which offers satellite overheads and a street-level view of local terrain.
Bing Bar
By the end of 2009, Microsoft introduced features such as the Bing Bar, which runs along the top of a browser screen and allows one-click access to news, weather, stocks, video and other options.
Bing Maps Silverlight
Microsoft announced on Jan. 19 that it would take its Bing Maps Silverlight site out of beta mode, and include two new features: Destination Maps and Local Events.
Local Events
The Local Events feature studs a Bing map with pins showing the latest local happenings.
Destination Maps
The Destination Maps feature lets the user render a Bing map in a highly stylized way, including "European," "Sketchy," "American," and "Treasure Map."
Searching for Food
By February, Bing introduced another round of features, including the ability to type in the name of a particular food, such as "pasta," and receive a "Recipes" tab on the left side of the search-results screen.
Recipes
Those recipes contain directions, ingredients and nutritional information such as calories, fats, sodium and carbohydrates.
Good and Good for You
Bing also provides nutritional information through "computational engine" Wolfram Alpha, which can rank various foods’ nutrient quotients to that of others. Here, we see that a standard serving of skirt steak ranks in the 94th percentile for vitamin B12 among 7,500 "common foods."
Animations
The Silverlight version of Bing Maps allows for more extensive animations, such as a "zoom down" to street level. It was part of the Silverlight-centric tweaks enacted to Bing in January.
Staying Local
Another Silverlight-enabled feature, What’s Nearby, allows the user to see nearby businesses and other points of interest around a selected location.
An Eye on Health
Microsoft also introduced the "enhanced Bing Health search experience," which returns data from multiple sources in response to health-related queries. By typing in "hospital," for example, you receive a variety of information about local medical facilities.
Related Conditions
As part of Bing’s health-related search enhancements, typing in a term like "heart attack" will result in lists of related conditions, medications and medical centers that specialize in the disease.
Visual Search
Visual Search for Bing allows users to click and scroll through a variety of image galleries in order to find a particular one, without needing to type in a search term. It seems designed to compete against Google’s own visual-search feature, Similar Images.
Social Media
Another Bing feature lets users post a message about a particular product—such as a digital camera—to Facebook or Twitter.
Event Search
Bing’s Event Search lets users scour events within a particular city or locality, subcategorized by civic activities, music and other options.
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Microsoft first introduced Bing, its search-engine answer to Google, on June 1, 2009. Considered a total revamp of Microsoft’s then-flagging attempts in the search space, Bing offered its own take on search-engine staples such as keyword search and maps, in addition to new features, such as specific tabs like Travel and Shopping. Over the past 12 months, Microsoft has made an effort to both add new gizmos and strengthen the core search engine—if only to match Google’s own advances. In certain ways, Microsoft’s efforts seem to have paid off. While Google continues to dominate in terms of overall searches, Bing has enjoyed strong gains in a number of vertical industry categories such as travel and health. As Bing enters its second year, it seems certain that Microsoft will continue to focus on growth in those verticals—while trying to chip away at Google’s sizable lead.