There’s no nice way to say this: Bing is trailing way behind in search because it’s not as good as Google. The first thing anyone does with any Microsoft product is figure out how to make the default search engine Google. To be fair, Bing is not a bad search engine, and it’s constantly improving, but it’s one product from a company that makes dozens competing against a company that’s been doing search for more than a decade and has search as central to its business model.
That said, Friend Search is kinda neat, even if it still won’t make you want to use Bing. It works like this: when you’re searching for something, type in the name of a friend on Facebook. It’ll post that search on your Timeline with your friends tagged so they can offer their personal thoughts on the matter. You can tag up to five people at a time for a search.
It’s a genuinely neat piece of tech and trying it out is fun. And I can see it having a genuine use in search, especially since it’s easier and less intrusive than dumping an annoying mass email on your friends. On the other hand, it does require you to use Bing. Maybe they can license the tech to Google?
But hey at least they make nice commercials featuring music by bands we like!
image courtesy Microsoft