Yes, this is another article about Bing. But I’m going to take a different spin. Instead of doing another expert review of the quality of the results and the cool interface like all the other search geeks (I use the term with affection), I want to review Bing the way that normal people will. So I’m going to take off my search expert hat and approach Bing from the perspective of the average user, who has very different concerns and motivations than the average search expert—starting with the fact that they don’t give much conscious though to them at all. Because let’s face it: while every search geek in the world has been checking Bing out this week, our moms don’t even know it exists yet.

The announcement

Most people’s first exposure to Bing was the news headlines generated by the initial buzz last week. Apparently there were over 1500 stories written about Bing the day after Microsoft’s announcement. Every major newspaper and news site had at least one headline that said something like “Microsoft ads say search is sick, Bing is the cure” or something similar. While most people probably didn’t read the articles, the buzz was loud enough that a healthy chunk of the population was at least dimly aware that Microsoft had launched a new search engine.

The name

OK, I thought it was a joke at first. I’d be willing to bet a number of others did too. Apparently Microsoft saw that coming, so they put out a bulletin to their employees to let them know it wasn’t. Good call on that. Arguably they would’ve been better off choosing a name that didn’t make people wonder if it was a joke, but I’ll let that go for now. In fairness, Google sounded stupid out of the gate, too.

What Bing makes me think of:

* The Southwest Airlines sound: “BING! You are now free to move about the country.”
* The super-annoying guy from Groundhog Day: Ned Ryerson - “Bing and bing again!”
* The hysterically funny Fortune columnist and author: Stanley Bing.
* Marc Andreessen’s social networking platform: Ning.
* TechSmith’s cool screen/video capture utility: Jing.

Now I understand there are few un-trademarked monosyllabic four-letter words available that aren’t swear words in any major languages (bong, dong and tang were ruled out for obvious reasons), but still. Bing? I’m not sure a word that is easily confused for other words (what? ding?) and has multiple connotations is the best way to go. Even if you are going to spend $80M-$100M “branding” it.

Finding Bing

But I digress. Let’s say the buzz caused someone to want to find out what all the hubbub was about. What would the average person do in this circumstance? We can all joke about this, but the reality is that a huge number of people will go to Google and query “Bing” to find out more about the new search engine. Don’t believe me?Read Full