BING launches in the UK - but what does it mean?
We've written about Bing previously. However, that was in praise of its image search functionality at a time before it began to release localised versions of search. Well now Microsoft have launched Bing in UK format, with content now localised in such a way that it can perhaps begin to make in-roads into Googles territory.
The localisation of Bing might not mean much to many people on the face of it, but it is a strategically critical move and one that users should at least give a few moments to try out.
Why the need to localise?
Beyond the USA, the United Kingdom is a very important marketplace to search engines. Internet use is very high, broadband penetration is amongst the highest in the world and whilst the UK needs to catch up on average access speeds, it still represents one of the worlds largest economies with a user base that are much sought after by business marketeers.
Globally, Microsoft has increased its search engine market share by 1.5% since the launch of Bing, but it has 3% of the UK market.
What's the difference?
The main difference you'll notice is that search results will be automatically localised - i.e. they'll be relevant to the geographic region you're browsing from in the same way that Google results are.
To that extent, for most users, search results are more valuable to businesses targeting a local customer base and in turn they should yield higher satisfaction for the browser themselves.
Bing UK will take users to local eCommerce sites and Microsoft have arranged a deal with Ciao for price comparisons (you know the sort of thing, aka Pricerunner and Kelkoo).
Anything else new?
Microsoft have also teamed up with the computational search engine Wolfram Alpha and it's results will be incorporated with search returns.
This means that users can now find answers to questions (theoretically) quicker by typing them directly into Bing. For example, if you were to type 'how deep is lake windermere', you should get the answer instead of a link to the answer. Unfortunately we didn't find this to be the case. We tried 'height of mount everest' (an example given by Microsoft) but that didn't work either - so whether or not there are early integration issues or not we can't be sure, but something wasn't quite working as it should be.
That little blip aside, we still consider Bing to be a long term rival to Google. Its interface is clean, it's quick and it does have a good few features that Google doesn't offer. Read the column to the right of this to find out a little more.
Breakthrough?
Big questions remain for Bing. Despite the 1.5% market share increase it still lags a very long way behind the monster that is Google.
In the UK, we've personally found the PR and marketing of Bing to be poor to say the least. If you ask the man on the street, few have heard of it. It tends to be known only by people in the IT and Web world - and that's bad news for Microsoft.
However, it does offer features that are of value. Hovering over pictures or links to get a brief preview of the site content is undoubtedly becoming a favourite of many. It's use of the left side of the browser window for related links content is also increasingly useful in the results it delivers.
Microsoft strongly believe that Googles ethic of plain text links don't deliver enough to todays demanding consumer - although 80% of search engine users appear to disagree! We think there is a delicate balance to be found between additional features that add genuine value and maintaining a swift and uncluttered experience that users have grown fond of with Google.
If you haven't tried Bing yet, you should. As we have mentioned before its image search facility is better than that of Google in our opinion and it has a warmer feel to it with the use of images on the Bing homepage being a feature that, for all its zero face value, seems to bring a little more to the visitor experience.
