Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

Responding to a commenter who says Microsoft doesn’t really understand branding, E.D. Kain says:

Exactly right. Nor do they understand connectivity and product overlap the way Google does. Google connects your email, chat, documents, search, and even browser now, etc. into basically one product, and with upcoming innovations like Wave and their OS that connectivity and overlap will just become far, far more effective. (Apple has done this fairly well also with hardware added into the mix)

Microsoft has tried with “Windows Live” and all that, but there are just too many gaps, too many brands, etc. I mean “bing” is now part of the whole cadre of Microsoft products, but is it really tied into them well? Why Microsoft hasn’t made their Windows platform more webby is beyond me. And why they make it so difficult to integrate everything is also confusing.

I’m out of touch on this stuff these days, but in fairness to Microsoft, doesn’t a lot of this have to do with antitrust rules that don’t allow them to integrate everything the way they’d like to?  My understanding has always been that if they could get away with it they’d basically merge every piece of software they own into a single platform and then make it next to impossible to use anything else.  But they can’t.

In any case, the motivation for the original post was David Pogue’s piece in the New York Times about Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing.  Anyone have any opinions they’d like to share on this?  I use it a lot for image searches, but not so much for ordinary text searches.  Partly this is because Bing doesn’t seem to have an Advanced Search page, which means I’d have to memorize whatever Boolean concatenation rules they use if I want to do anything more complicated than a search for the latest Michael Jackson news.  Sure, that’s lazy of me, but Google works pretty well, so even a small nuisance makes all the difference between using something new and skipping it.

On the other hand, it’s sort of interesting to see what Bing comes up with in its “Related Searches” list.  If I type in my name, I get a bunch of expected stuff, but also Maitland Ward.  Huh?  Who’s that?  (Says here that she’s an actress born in Long Beach who attended the same university as me.  Is that all it takes?)  But even at that I’m lucky.  Matt Yglesias gets paired up with Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter.  Atrios gets Michelle Malkin and Atrio Insurance.  Jane Hamsher gets Bill Clinton.  (She also gets Jane Hamsher Death, which seems kind of ghoulish.)

Oh, and I like the background artwork on the Bing home page.  Very soothing.  Not enough to make me switch from Google on a regular basis, but soothing anyway.

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate