Bing. Microsoft is calling the successor to Windows Live Search a “decision engine” that lets users move beyond search to make faster, more informed decisions.
Bing does this by building on today’s search-engine technology, but offering a new user experience and tools to accomplish any one of four goals: Making a purchase, planning a trip, researching a health condition, or finding a local business.
Microsoft pointed to the explosive growth of online content and promises Bing will help users more easily navigate the information overload so the 30 percent of searches that comScore reports are unsatisfactory can have a better outcome. Bing will officially roll out on June 3.
“Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they’ve found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
Organizing Search
When users log on to Bing, perhaps the first thing they’ll notice is a more organized search experience. According to a report from Ipsos Mendelsohn, more people are regularly spending time with search engines, engaging in complex, multi-query and multi-session searches. Respondents said an organized search experience would be twice as useful in finding information and accomplishing tasks faster.
Bing offers navigation and search tools on the left side of the page, a related-searches scheme, and a table of contents for different categories of search results, among other features. Bing also aims to help users simplify tasks and provide insight into results.
Microsoft’s research identified shopping, travel, local business and information, and health-related research as areas in which people wanted more assistance in making key decisions, and it optimized Bing accordingly.
For example, while a consumer is using Bing to shop online, the Sentiment Extraction feature searches the Internet for…