What a strange phrase to use – a decision engine. Personally, I find search most often not for decisions but for information, yet perhaps, to inform a decision, somehow!
Anyway, today we get to hear the first about Bing. Its going to be Microsoft’s new search engine, replacing what was MSN Search, then Windows Live Search, then just Live Search. Some would suggest they are, as always, trying to topple the mightly Google, yet others suggest this is way beyond their aspirations, and they are aiming lower, at Yahoo say.
Now, I haven’t actually read a great deal on this, but there’s a million and one links and stuff to click-through to via twitter posts. Interestingly, I’ve actually not used a search engine at all to research this, only on links from Twitter – literally the people’s search engine. But the essence of the project seems to be to bring every source of information together, and to display it as the result of a bing search.
Whether this be your weather or searching for a new camera, it appears to be able to find appropriate sites, route out the appropriate content and then select this and use it on its own pages, formatted together neatly. That is a massive ask.
The product / holiday selection features seem to be particularly notable in the promotional video, with bing acting like a combination of all the various price comparison websites for pretty much everything in one search result page. If achievable, this would be very impressive, time-saving and useful, but it is achievable? Microsoft obviously think so, but it would be a miracle if they have.
As yet its not yet available to use online, but I look forward to giving it a try. Oh, and not sure if it is taking on the other upcoming new-kid-on-the-block site Wolfram Alpha, but by the looks of the video bing can answer specific questions – or is it just showing that this is basic search and they are above that??
More? Have a look at…