It always amazes me how some high tech people think. To repeat an old anecdote, Alfred North Whitehead, one of the great thinkers of his era, was talking with Bertrand Russell, the famous philosopher. Said Whitehead to his friend, " there are only two kinds of people in this world, the simple-minded and the muddled-headed. You are simple-minded, Bertie, and I am muddle-headed." In this sense, high tech people are hopelessly muddle-headed. No-one seems capable of simplifying anything, anything at all. Feature creep is the name of the game, and creep grows almost exponentially --until now it gets in the way of almost everything you want to do via search functions. Like government regulations, once about the size of a student edition of Webster's Dictionary, now in grand total bulk, a document collection with the volume of an aircraft carrier. Also, the popular culture / popular values bias is overwhelming, and for people who could care less about such things as ticket purchasing via web ( much easier to go to the corner store where you have gotten such things for years from a friendly shopkeeper ) this is maddening. Instead of what you want there is a mountain of --from this viewpoint-- total crap to climb over before you can get to what you want. The solution is simple, which is exactly why people in the high tech search biz have never thought of it. It is this : Allow users to customize their searches. Allow users to eliminate all the crap that now attaches to search pages. All those "cool" thingies that have no value whatsoever but that Google people regard as "important," which in reality are idiotic in the extreme. By allowing them to edit out ( get rid of ) all the stuff they never use, and HATE. Make this process simple, self-evidently easy to use. By providing search algorithms that bring up relevant stuff and which dismiss all the pop culture stuff they have no use for. Focus could be business, or scholarship, or literature, you name it. This DOES NOT mean, for example, Google's scholar search option, which is a sick joke since it defines scholarship as strictly academic journal material, which, of course, usually misses half of the interesting stuff going on in any field of research at the time. What it might do is to use the basic search process but delete blogs with zero reputation, delete commercial sites, and delete sites with red flag vocabulary like cuss words and references to well known conspiracies. To pay for this just charge a modest fee, say $5. 95 per month. It would be worth it. Not 15. 95 a month, not 25. 95 a month, just 5 . 95 --so that it is no burden and is easily affordable to millions. Saying all this, these comments will be --guaranteed-- completely ignored. Too simple, too easy to understand, too obvious, and not enough worthless crap to make Google's high tech people happy. But it has been said for the sake of those of us who care about content and who have little or no interest in techno-labyrinths which must now be mastered before it is possible to do even the simplest tasks. Billy ----------------------------------------------------- My comment : Who gives a damn ? Microsoft's plan to stop Bing's $1 billion bleeding By _David Goldman_ (mailto:[email protected]) @_CNNMoneyTech_ (http://twitter.com/CNNmoneytech) September 20, 2011: 12:41 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Bing, Microsoft's two-year old search engine, is losing nearly a $1 billion a quarter, with no sign of letting up. Microsoft (_MSFT_ (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=MSFT&source=story_quote_link) , _Fortune 500_ (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/snapshots/3063.html?source=story_f500_link) ) has lost $5.5 billion on Bing since the _search service launched in June 2009_ (http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/28/technology/microsoft_bing/index.htm?iid=EL) , but the company's search losses actually pre-date that. In fact, the software giant has never made money in its online services division. Since Microsoft began breaking out that unit's finances in 2007, the company has lost a total of $9 billion. Even the good news with Bing isn't so great. Microsoft proudly proclaims that it has gained search market share against Google (_GOOG_ (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=GOOG&source=story_quote_link) , _Fortune 500_ (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/snapshots/11207.html? source=story_f500_link) ) in each of the past 27 months. While that's true, it is not gaining search share from Google. Bing currently maintains a 14.7% share of the search market, up from 8.4% when Bing launched, according to online data tracker comScore (_SCOR_ (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=SCOR&source=story_quote_link) ). Google currently commands 64.8% of the market -- down just two-tenths of a percentage point from the 65% it held when Bing debuted. More than half the share that Bing has gained has actually come from third-place Yahoo (_YHOO_ (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=YHOO&source=story_quote_link) , _Fortune 500_ (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/snapshots/10867.html?source=story_f500_link) ). The rest has come from search cellar-dwellers _Ask.com_ (http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/09/technology/ask_search/index.htm?iid=EL) and AOL (_AOL_ (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=AOL&source=story_quote_link) ). There's usually no such thing as "bad" market share growth, but _Yahoo's search is powered by Bing_ (http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/20/technology/yahoo_stock/index.htm?iid=EL) . That means more than half of Microsoft's share growth has come from cannibalizing its search partner. Can Bing escape its stagnation and actually make money? Microsoft says it has a solution. At the company's _financial analyst meeting_ (http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/15/technology/xbox_tv/index.htm?iid=EL) in Anaheim, Calif., last week, Microsoft President of Online Services Qi Lu gave an impassioned speech about how Bing would improve search by "reorganizing the Web." To do that, Microsoft plans to leverage its network of products and partnerships to gain a better understanding of what the user is after when they enter a query into a Bing search box. Ultimately, Microsoft believes its technical secret sauce will let Bing both expand what is "searchable" and deliver more robust search results than any of its competitors. Lu said Microsoft could not and would not try to "out-Google" Google. Instead, it must "change the game fundamentally." Bing has already begun to show some of that capability. For instance, though partnerships with various ticketing agencies, a search for "_Mariners tickets_ (http://www.bing.com/search?q=mariners+tickets&go=&qs=n&sk=&sc=8-9&form=QBLH) " will display links to upcoming games and a map of Seattle's Safeco Field showing fans where tickets are available. A search for _flight information_ (http://www.bing.com/travel/flight/flightSearch?form=TRFRAS&q=flights+from+JFK+to+LAX+leave+10/14/2011+return+10/16/2011+adults:1+class:COACH&s hl=fly+JFK>LAX+(10/14-10/16)&stoc=0&vo1=New+York,+NY+(JFK)+-+John+F.+Kennedy +International+Airport&o=JFK&ve1=Los+Angeles,+CA+(LAX)+-+Los+Angeles+Interna tional+Airport&e=LAX&d1=10/14/2011&r1=10/16/2011&p=1&b=COACH&baf=true&baf,PR I-HP,FlightsHomepage=on) will tell you when the best day is to purchase a plane ticket. Searching for "_digital camera_ (http://www.bing.com/shopping/search?q=digital+camera&FORM=HURE) " will display images of cameras that can be filtered, sorted and compared. It's a step forward from a laundry list of blue links. Through its search _partnership with Facebook_ (http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/24/technology/msft_facebook/?iid=EL) , its _mobile partnership_ (http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/11/technology/nokia_microsoft/index.htm?iid=EL) with Nokia (_NOK_ (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=NOK&source=story_quote_link) ) and its marriage with various Microsoft products, Bing will gradually gain a semantic understanding of the Web, Lu said. That will transform search from today's noun-based keyword entry -- a system Lu dismissed as "caveman speak" -- to eventually give Bing the ability to field questions phrased in natural human language. 0:00 / 1:11 Inside Microsoft's Windows 8 preview It sounds great. But how is this thing going to make money? Stefan Weitz, Microsoft's director of Bing, believes that if Bing can change the way people think about search, sooner or later users will switch over from Google. "Our challenge is that no one wakes up in the morning and says, 'I really wish there was a better search engine,'" Weitz said. "That's why, for us, it's always been about figuring out how to accomplish more than we thought was possible with a search engine. Eventually, people will expect to do more with search, and if they can't, they'll be disappointed." Luring users away from Google is a daunting task. Microsoft is competing against a verb -- "I'll go Google that" -- and an entrenched consumer habit. Even if Microsoft can steal market share from Google, it faces a long journey toward profitability. Market share is key in search: With it, advertisers flock to you, and you can charge high rates for ads. But without it, search is a very expensive business. To capture the attention of a critical mass of advertisers -- enough to turn a profit -- multiple analysts said that Bing will need at least 25% to 30% of the market. That's double its current share. Meanwhile, Google is also scrambling to -- as Microsoft put it -- "do more with search." Google recently _launched a new social network_ (http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/28/technology/google_plus/index.htm?iid=EL) , _integrated advanced flight data_ (http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/13/technology/google_flight_search/index.htm?iid=EL) into its search results, and _tweaked its algorithm_ (http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/25/technology/gaming_google/index.htm?iid=EL) to favor original content. Weitz calls the Bing-vs-Google rivalry a "big geek slap fight," and says Microsoft has one key advantage over its rival: It has nothing to lose by experimenting. On the flip side, slight tweaks to Google's search algorithm _send shivers down the spines_ (http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/08/technology/google_algorithm_change/index.htm?iid=EL) of companies that rely on high rankings. "We are able to try things with much more flexibility," said Weitz. "If we make a mistake, it's not going to take down the company." Most analysts are bullish on Bing's technology, but they're mixed on whether Internet users will really change their behavior. "Bing will likely be better than Google over time, but even if it is, users and advertisers still need to go to them," said Sid Parakh, analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen. "To be clear, this will take a long, long time to play out. This is something Microsoft will continue to lose money on." Several analysts, including Parakh, predict that Bing will continue to incrementally improve and gain share, becoming profitable in another three to four years. Looking at Google's dominance, it may seem impossible today for a rival to get a significant foothold. But the tech world is funny like that: No one could have imagined 13 years ago that a small search engine out of Stanford University would ever unseat the mighty Yahoo. "When you're talking about something like consumer behavior and advertising, having the advantage of being the first place people go is hard for another company to counteract," said Sue Feldman, search engine analyst at IDC. "Can it change? Sure. As with everything in technology, in a period of tremendous ferment and innovation, something could happen to overturn a market leader." (http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/20/technology/microsoft_bing/index.htm?iid=EL#TOP) First Published: September 20, 2011 -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
