While I'm Thinking About It

So . . . Bing

In case you haven't heard, Microsoft has a new search engine, the multi-associated* bing.com. They're not officially calling it a Google killer that I can tell, but you know that's what it's aimed at. It's got a clean, attractive design (better than the default, rather sparse and barren, Google to my eyes), and only one mention of the Evil Empire, that being at the very bottom of the page in the copyright notice.

But forget looks and motivations. The only thing that really matters with a search engine is, how well does it work?

• "Andrew Rothery" brought this site up as the very first entry, with the other AR's filling up the rest of the page. Google doesn't do that anymore, and sometimes I'm not even on the first page.
• "Webcomics" returns the Halfpixel crew's resource/hints-and-tips site webcomics.com first. Noted news blog/Dumbrella shill Fleen shows up on page 10. Bengo, the deep thinker who often uses his blog, The Floating Lightbulb to stir up Webcomics Drama, doesn't appear anywhere in the first thirty pages of results.
• "Webcomics Drama," meanwhile, is full of sites talking about dramatic comics, with only the occassional mention of the free bonus entertainment that pops up every now and again.
• "Free Email" provides links to both Gmail and Hotmail on the first page.
• "Linux" does not spit out any sort of error or a load of Windows links. The only distro on the first page is Ubuntu.

Final analysis? Not bad, but it's got a bad name and, aside from the ego-stroke in the first test, it's not that much better than Google for me to switch.

Plus, you know, Microsoft.

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*Bing cherries, Bing Crosby, Chandler Bing.