When the announcement for Bing came out, I didn't immediately go over and check it out. As a matter of fact, I didn't even look at it. My reasoning was simple: Google was working well and therefore I didn't see any reason to switch. But this past Saturday, Paul Nielsen of SQL Server Bible fame tweeted the following:
Microsoft search engine Bing honors D-Day on their front page. Goggle "honors" Tetris.
To me, D-Day is a bit more important in world history that Tetris. So I clicked over and saw an image of the beach and the land behind it, where Allied forces came ashore 65 years ago. You can still see the image if you go to the Bing page and hover towards the bottom right of the photo. You should get left and right arrows, which allow you to navigate back and forth to see the images that have been posted. The D-Day one was Saturday's. Imbedded in the image are a couple of highlights which can take you to more information on that fateful day.
Now the fact that Bing was honoring D-Day and Google wasn't isn't the reason I switched. However, the difference in their choices is the reason I considered Bing. I took a look at it, ran a couple of searches and was reasonably satisfied with what I got back. So since I was already there, I decided to configure it as my default search provider for both IE7 (sorry, I've not upgraded) and Firefox on my personal laptop. I figure I'll give it a run for a few weeks and see how it does. If I don't like the results, I'll switch back. If I do, I'll leave it alone. If it works great, I'll look at switching over my other systems, too. If you're interested in doing the same, you may want to visit the following link:
FAQ: How to add some Bing to your browser (ComputerWorld)
That's interesting. Andy Warren and I have talked about this. If they both do the same job, why switch? Live, or now Bing, would have to be 20% better to get you to switch.
That's an interesting idea, commemorating important events. I hadn't noticed it, but that might be a 20% reason for some people. I ran a few searches on it and Google, similar results, but since Google works, and I know what I'm looking for, I'll have to see if it's worth trying.
Pingback from feelings » Blog Archive » Pearl Harbor Day Remembered
