What’s so special about Microsoft’s Bing search engine?

Microsoft tried, with overall mild resolve, to compete with Google and Yahoo! in the search engine arena. Its Live Search service, by all means, didn’t deliver the kind of user experience that generated repeat uses. So they killed that service.

That’s right, the Live Search service is gone!

How’s that for big news?

But there’s even bigger news. The old “live.com” service is officially set to be replaced tomorrow by a new search service called “bing.com“. Another 4-letter .com which is easy to remember and cool to bookmark. That’s pretty much as far as the similarities go, however.

The Bing.com search engine is built, from the gound up, so to speak, to be completely different than Live.com in the sense that it’s more mature and precise. A lot of testing went on using the Live dataset so expect to find in Bing what was available through its [now retired] predecesor.

Steve Ballmer said this about its new web destination: “Bing [will] enable people to find information quickly and use the information they’ve found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions.” at last week’s All Things Digital conference, in Carlsbad, CA.

And gosh, is Ballmer ever fired up about Bing!

According to Microsoft, in addition to offering search by category, Bing will offer…

• more relevant search results;
• snapshots of search results’ Web pages;
• color-coded search results; and
• search tools on the left side of the page.

This new search engine is also set up to organize query results in relevant groups rather than as a series of links. Google might want to pick up on this! So, for instance, a search for “travel to Seattle” may return Seattle destinations like hotels, restaurants and museums as almost a guidebook page. The same search on Live generated straight individual links that users had to go through one by one.

Microsoft has looked for ways to improve its search advertising revenue for years and maybe Bing will give them “more bang for their money”. It’s hard to imagine that advertisers will be leaving Google and Yahoo! for Bing anytime soon but overtime, maybe some people will get curious and want to see if Microsoft go its new search service right, this time around.

Everyone “in the know” regarding the search engine wars was aware that Microsoft’s search market share had been slipping for more than two years. It struggled to make its online advertising unit profitable but that wasn’t going too well. According to comScore, Microsoft maintains a meager 8.2% share of the market for core searches compared with 64.2% for Google and 20.4% for Yahoo!.

After trying a few searches in Bing’s “preview” search service for “new technology“, “local pizza“, “alternative cancer treatments“, “free education” and “open source scripts” yielded impressively relevant results which actually made sense. The pay-per-click results were generally related but not always useful. Maybe when Microsoft convinces more advertisers to sign-up, those results will become more interesting.

You may also appreciate the “quick information” that’s displayed at the right of the hyperlinks [and descriptions] to give you a sort of preview of what you’ll find, at any particular web site. Here again, Google and Yahoo! should send a few spies to check it out.

We’ll need at least a few months to see if Bing has what the users are looking for but until then, it’ll be interesting to see what the competition does to make sure they stay on top.

Tags: bing, about bing, bing.com, bing search, bing search engine, microsoft bing, steve ballmer, ballmer about bing, allthingsd, all things digital, live, live.com, search engine war, google, yahoo!, competition, users, visitors, internet, web, online

Of the synthetic worlds’ new ways

Over the past few years, synthetic worlds, like Second Life and some 50 others, have created a new way for people to socialize, entertain, innovate and transact business — in itself, this can be a harsh reality for many organizations.

Why is that?

Mainly because traditional inward-focused business models may not have the long-term sustainability to survive much longer, at least in the online realm.

If you’re new to this online phenomenon, consider that synthetic worlds are basically computer-based simulated environments that allow for multiple users to inhabit and interact with each other through 2D or 3D graphical representations of humanoids and other forms (also known as the “avatars”).

Also note that these virtual words resemble the real world with rules such as gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions and communication.

Businesswise, the typical process for a company to get some kind of value out of synthetic worlds starts with (1) a sound understanding of the virtual environment at hand, (2) the launch of a test (or prototype) environment followed by a (3) full implementation and hopefully, regular follow-ups.

Companies need to realize that, in these new virtual environments, self-organized consumer communities (think of them as ongoing uncensored “60 Minutes” shows on steroids) can lead to lucrative opportunities or, if the balance should swing in the other direction, present pretty self-evident (and dramatic) new threats such as when a business (or one of its products) gets on “the bad side” of one or many members, in a given synthetic world.

Taking a long-term strategic approach to assessing the pros and cons of virtual environments ensures, at the very least, that enterprises decide to venture into an environment based on a thorough evaluation of its possibilities… and its risks. As the consumer environment alternatives change, virtual environments offer new routes to market and since the traditional business model will likely be unable to cope with it, the opportunity is that much more significant.

As synthetic worlds stand today, companies that explore and understand these environments will likely win consumer buy-in along with better loyalty tomorrow.

Tags: synthetic worlds, virtual environments, avatars, socialize, entertain, innovate, transact, online

Newsvine’s new looks

Social bookmarking is getting smarter all the time. From easier access to the information you’re looking for to new ways to share your latest findings, getting social is the new game in town.

Newsvine, based in Seattle WA, takes the daily whirlwind of new information streams very seriously. With over 600,000 members already bookmarking their findings with their free service, they felt it was time for an overhaul.

They worked up their front page to make it easier to get a birds eye view of what’s hot online, at any given moment. With smart use of the usual news categories, such as politics, tech and entertainment, it’s a no brainer to sift through the latest releases from the world over. You’ll even find a collection of live tags for each category.

The local headlines and weather are also easier to gather, which is always nice but the search feature is somewhat sluggish. Then again, considering the amount of newly added data they need to process, that might be inevitable. Because of the nature of social bookmarking, cached data content is less valuable than the latest and greatest.

Add the Newsvine Groups, Newsvine Live and News in Pictures features and it’s easy to see that this social bookmarking service is looking to go places.

The external RSS feeds tool is a convenient to add the news you like to your Newsvine front page. Of course, this is a “member only” feature but since membership is entirely free, it shouldn’t be a problem!

Tags: newsvine, social bookmarking, tech, web services, online

PHP code generators

If you know how to setup a MySQL database, the next logical step to publish all that data storage logic through a web interface is, among other choices, the PHP web scripting language.

Although tens of millions of coders worldwide use it, building an intranet, an extranet or a public web user interface (with a MySQL backend) might not be all too peachy, especially for the newbies.

Fear not, coding your “dynamic” pages in PHP might still be done with relative ease using any of the following “code generator” software (for the Windows platform, only):

• PHPRunner – It builds visually appealing web interfaces for any local or remote MySQL, MS Access, SQL Server and Oracle database setup.
• CodeCharge Studio – Used to visually create database-driven web applications with a minimal amount of coding. The support for virtually all databases, web servers and web technologies, makes this software quite unique.
• PHPMaker – As the name implies, it’s a powerful automation tool that can generate a full set of PHP pages from a MySQL database. Instantly create web sites that allow users to view, edit, search, add and delete records online.

While some other PHP code generation solutions exist, even in the open source realm, they all seem to cover only part of what’s needed to create a serious PHP coded online interface for a MySQL data backend.

As with any lucrative vertical market, new contenders such as Delphi for PHP are entering the market with interesting alternatives that newbies and experts alike might find engaging, especially considering the price (around 250$).

Whenever you create a PHP coded project, with any of these fine software offerings, expect to spend some time making everything look good. The semi-generic way in which the data is presented using these code generating software offerings might not look nice enough for immediate presentation to your intended audience.

Of course, once the rather heavy PHP coding part is done, especially for the newbies, the visual end of things may turn out to be easier to gracefully integrate.

Using code generators to quickly build sophisticated PHP web applications helps save both time and money.

Furthermore, for the newbies, it’s usually the only way to package a credible first version of their online offering so if you’re one of them, make sure to check the code generation software offerings out in order to benefit, like millions of other more advanced coders, from the awesome programming power of PHP, for your projects.

Tags: php, code generators, web programming