Bing now the fastest growing search engine in the US
Google still commands the lion's share of the search market. But a new batch of figures released this week has Bing as the fastest growing search engine in the United States. According to Nielsen, a media research firm, Bing now holds nearly 11 percent share of the market 鈥� a significant spike over the 9 percent recorded in July.
There's still a lot of work to do before Bing will really threaten Google's 65 percent stranglehold on the search engine market. Bing must not only contend with the technical challenges 鈥� making an engine better than Google's 鈥� but the cultural ones, too. After all, we 鈥淕oogle鈥� the nearest restaurant. It will be difficult to get a sizable swath of web users to start 鈥淏inging鈥� the show times for the new "Twilight" flick.
Still, Bing's numbers are pointing in the right direction. And critics and users have been kind to Microsoft's new engine. Participants in a June focus group study said they preferred the visual design and feel of Bing over Google. One test subject said Bing was 鈥渨armer and more inviting.鈥� Another opined that 鈥淏ing鈥檚 search refining features were more helpful than Google鈥檚.鈥�
As for Google 鈥� well, no one in the home office is exactly quaking in their boots. Yet. In an interview this month with Fox Business Network this summer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt seemed to dismiss bing. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not the first entry for Microsoft. They do this about once a year,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think Bing鈥檚 arrival has changed what we鈥檙e doing. We are about search, we鈥檙e about making things enormously successful, by virtue of innovation.鈥�
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Moral of Obama, Kanye incident? Nothing is off the record anymore.
What began on Sunday as a snafu 鈥� Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift鈥檚 acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards 鈥� has escalated into a Web-wide conversation on the usefulness of Twitter and the state of presidential politics in the YouTube age. Read more here.
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