Bing's market share ripple

[Stephen Withers]

Microsoft's Bing search engine arrived with a splash, but despite the early interest you'd hardly notice the ripples when you look at market share.

SECURITY FOCUS EVENT (Sydney July 17)

Microsoft launched Bing with much fanfare and it was met with significant media attention.

But it made little difference to people's searching habits.

According to figures collected by StatCounter, search engine shares fluctuated by only a fraction of a percentage point.

Comparing the two weeks following Bing's debut with the two weeks before, StatCounter saw Google's share drop by -0.12 percentage points to 89.69 percent, Yahoo's by -0.24 to 5.1 percent, while Microsoft's rose 0.42 points to 3.5 percent.

The Microsoft numbers combine Bing, MSN Search and Live Search.

I'm sure Microsoft is pleased with any gain, and coming off such a small base that is a creditable effort.

Similarly, that's a proportionately large chunk taken out of Yahoo's share.

But Google's share remains within the range it has seen over the last 12 months. And while the inhabitants of the Googleplex are likely bothered about any loss of share (or more accurately the loss of advertising revenue that follows), they're probably not losing any sleep.

I'm left wondering which other search engines lost share to Bing - who uses anything other than Google, Yahoo and Bing (and its forebears)?

Bing has a long way to go before it takes the number two spot, let alone becoming a credible challenger for Google. But Microsoft seems determined to keep plugging away.

To my mind, the biggest barrier to broader Bing adoption is the way the site insists on sending an 80K (or thereabouts) photo when visitors want to do is search?



Article Link at http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25628/1151/

[STP]

I think one of Bings limitations is that iot doesnt have the igoogle customization, personally my homepage is set to igoogle, where I can have my youtube subscription updates, a little window showing any new gmail emails and a variety of website updates... I can even put in small web-based flash games.

Bing, from what Ive seen, cannot compete with that.

[Rampage]

Bing is boring.

My homepage is Google too.

[Alex Zaharov-Reutt]

Hiya Rampage,

Is Google or iGoogle your home page? It's not clear from your response, possibly also in response to STP who talked about iGoogle, which you are specifically referring to.

I'm sure Microsoft could copy iGoogle with its own iBing anytime it wanted to - it's not exactly as if that kind of thing is hard to do. Not being a programmer it actually might be quite hard but if Microsoft is supposed to be this huge software company then a widgetable iBing page a la iGoogle should really be an iDoddle to iCopy and iMplement qUickly.

Or is that iEmbrace and iExtend?

www.iBing.com is already gone though, redirecting to some Spanish site in Flash that I didn't stick around to see the rest of.

In the big pond that is Google, Bing has but make a plink, a drop in a bucket that is still causing ripples, even if we'll hardly notice them.

How Microsoft amps up the flow of water, how much it rocks the boat, how much money it pours into advertising and more is all still yet to be seen.

The fact Microsoft has made its biggest ripple yet in search despite a decade of "failure" with MSN Search and Live Search is interesting.

I don't think Google are losing any sleep over it but the constant and growing competition between the two companies far beyond search is driving true innovation, whatever you think of either company, in search, operating systems, office/productivity software, mapping, mobility etc.

The competition isn't solely between Microsoft and Google either - there are several other players that we all know very well (Apple, Canonical/Ubuntu, Nokia, etc). To think it'll all be ancient history one day and we'll all be wirelessly brain connected to the Matrix or something... haha

Cheers

Alex.

[mdsmedia]

My home page is a Google one too. My email is hosted by Google. If I want to search something, it's Googled.

I AM biased, so I'll call it. I've looked at Bing. I've seen nothing to make me use anything but Google.

STP and Rampage make some good points. Google is the best there is at what they do. I'll always look at Microsoft with distrust, but I never have that feeling with Google. For that reason, if nothing else, I'll use Google. I'll promote Google.

Google Wave v. MS is similar to Linux v. Windows. While MS attempt to catch up, Wave and Linux innovate.

[Matrix]

To think it'll all be ancient history one day and we'll all be wirelessly brain connected to the Matrix or something

Alex, do you really think everyone will be wirelessly connected to me?

My home page is Google. I use Google to search.

I have something to sing... Ding ding... That Bing thing will never be king

Matrix.

[Shabo]

I used Bing, not by choice but because MS makes you if you are searching for anything on their pages. It was still horrible, just like Live and MSN search. And it didn't play well with Google either. What Google indexed was not what I wanted. So thanks, MS, for sucking all around.