Bing Makes a Bang

A former search whiz at Yahoo!, Qi Liu is now spearheading Microsoft’s Bing, which is already garnering good reviews.

Microsoft Corp., a perennial disappointment in the search world, may have finally come up with something worthwhile. Bing, its new search site launched in June, gained enough share during its first week in use to briefly unseat Yahoo! as the second most widely used search engine, according to web analysis firm StatCounter.

After a long slow decline, Microsoft’s search market share among searchers rose to 15.5 percent from 13.8 percent in the first week following Bing’s release, according to data from ComScore. While Bing—headed by ex-Yahoo! wizard Qi Lu—may have a good shot at unseating Yahoo!, it has barely put a dent in Google’s market share, which retains an 8-to-1 lead in search results pages returned over Microsoft.

Observers say it is still unclear whether the $100 million or so Microsoft will pour into its ad campaign for Bing will enable the company to hold onto and expand on its early gains. Bing, which allows users to drill down on a subject to reach their goal more quickly, is getting particularly good reviews for its search results in niches like travel and shopping.

Users have also given Microsoft kudos for the search engine’s ability to search through video clips quickly. That capability has also drawn complaints for its tendency to bypass porn filters. But that perceived fault may be another sign of success. After all, pornography is well known as an early adopter of innovative technology.

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