whitenight - 8:16 pm on Aug 17, 2009 (gmt 0)

Seems everyone has forgotten the great points brought up in the original Bing! threads and gotten all hyper-geeky.

Bing doesn't NEED to be "recognizably" different (or better) to be successful.

Anymore than Pepsi needs to taste recognizably different (or better) than Coke.

They just need to gain enough market share with big money ADVERTISERS to be a true force in the debate.

And this is more a matter of market PERCEPTION (aka branding) than anything having to do with "best quality according to geeks" measurements.

It's my tired ole analogy of
"Who makes a better burger?
McDonald's?
or that great hometown diner on Main Street?
Yet who makes more money?"

As webmasters, we do not want Bing! to wipe Google off the face of the earth.
We DO want Bing! to grab enough marketshare (with the masses, not us geeks) to keep Goog from having a virtual monopoly on traffic.

--------------
I agree with tedster that term re-writing is the key.

Again, let's ignore the geekiness, and look at pop culture.

Comedians have been making fun of this aspect of Goog for years now.

And when something as geeky as term rewriting makes it into most comedians "pop culture observations" than it's something that resonates with the culture as a whole as a "problem".

Bing! has done a great job of realizing this and openly mocking it in their commercials
and at the same time,
subtly focusing on the big money advertisers.

Watch those commercials VERY CAREFULLY and see how they appeal to both
Goog's term rewriting arrogance
and
high paying CPC ad terms.

Very smart!