If anybody noticed, Microsoft recently relabeled Windows Live Search to Bing, it’s new name. The release was preceded by a sexy video on the new website, depicting what was apparently an idiotic housewife twitching her nose while using the “new” service.

I’m no marketing expert, but continuously throwing money at this attempt to suffocate Google’s most popular service via Internet Exploiter Explorer’s popularity is starting to appear kind of sad. The site promises to be more of a “decision engine”, which is a fancy term for “relabeling almost everything Google has done”.

The Trail of Failure

First, there was MSN Search, set as the default page for Internet Explorer <= 6(?) and an attempt to take over Google and Yahoo's search engine market share via Windows/IE/MSN's popularity.

It didn't really catch on.

So, enter Windows Live search: The new, sexy, web 2.0 relabeling of the same damn product, with a new interface and a separate site. The new site was set as the default search engine for IE 7, and set to be bundled with other Windows Live-branded products.

It didn't really catch on, either.

So, the geniuses behind the Jerry Seinfeld, "I'm a PC" and Mojave commercials at MS Marketing decided that the search engine needed a new, funky noun/verb name like Google and Yahoo! had. Enter Bing.

Live, err, I mean Bing

The site looks the same as the olde Windows Live search page. The results are just as out-of-date and non-indexed as Windows Live’s results. It still has slight interface bugs in non-IE browsers. The verdict is that it is, in fact, the same web site only with a new background image displaying the stupid Bing! name.

Oh, they did add some new and “innovative” stuff, though. For instance: it ranks shopping results alongside a search term for, example, “digital camera”. Oh wait, that’s not innovative – Google does the same thing.

Wait, come to think of it, the search suggestions, yellow-background ads at the top, simplistic homepage, customized results and other NEW AND INNOVATIVE FEATURES were also DONE BY GOOGLE before Bing! was launched/relabeled.

And We Care How Much?

So what’s the point? Trying to breath new interest into an old product via a new, sexy name/verb and “new” features in order to attempt to eat into Google’s primary service. I wonder how this attempt will fail, and what the new rebranding will be…

And one more thing, while I’m at it: “let me bing that for you”, “yeah, I binged her and found her myspace” and “I binged myself today” are NOT as catchy as the Google name/verb usage. No matter how hard you can try.

I think I’ll start selling dead cats on eBay. Only, when nobody buys my dead cats, I’ll start calling them “Live Dead Cats”, then relabel them “Swoosh!” in an attempt to draw up marketing. The only disadvantage is that I can’t push users to buy the dead cats via a firm grasp on another market, I guess.

…But I still think it would be more successful than trying to knock over Google’s search engine share, I can tell you that much.

http://bit.ly/bingsucks

</rant>