While Google is working on an online music service that will reportedly debut later this year, Microsoft is getting out of the gate right now with new entertainment features. The new features include streaming music from its Bing search engine.
It seems the software giant smells an opportunity to help people use search to make entertainment decisions, and Microsoft wants to show off its “significant investment” in music, gaming, movies and TV.
The company is inviting consumers trying to decide what movie to buy or see, which TV shows to watch, what music to listen to, and how to find casual video games to use Bing Entertainment. Analysts are bullish on the new project, but it’s easy enough for Google to replicate.
A Winning Bing Bet
According to Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, the entertainment category will appeal to a lot of consumers — and Bing has brought together a great deal of content and created a solid user experience.
“More broadly, Bing has improved the look and feel and search user experience overall. The inclusion of more content in search results as well as the enhanced navigation — left column and tabs under the search box — make Bing a more and more viable competitor to Google,” Sterling said.
“Having said that, we’re not going to see a mass exodus to Bing. But over time these changes and improvements start to have an impact,” he said. “Even though Google has not seen its market share decrease, it clearly has been affected and made defensive moves because of Bing.”
Making Entertainment Decisions
Microsoft research found that more than 70 percent of people look for song lyrics online, and Bing has added plenty of lyrics for searchers. Zune is also offering a single free play of all five million songs in its catalog, and…