Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, is slowly but surely becoming “the other choice” when it comes to search. It’s still small when compared to Google’s 64% search market share, but C-net recently reported Bing is now at 3rd place with 10% following Yahoo! with 16%.
And… have you heard? Microsoft is taking over Yahoo!. So this means that soon there will be no more Yahoo!, giving Bing a leg up to a theoretical 26%. With that momentum… anything can happen.
I still think Bing has a long way to go before matching the kingdom of Google – tools, maps, calendar, support, education, and Google’s involvement in pretty much everything will take a while for Bing to catch up to.
But who knows? If we’ve learned anything in the last few years is that these changes are unpredictable and when they happen, they happen fast. If Microsoft finds that “something” that’s worth the switch, it won’t be long before we’ll be reminiscing the Google days.
Whaddaya think, will we soon have two good, reliable, competing search engines? …sounds interesting.
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Do you think that this 10% in August is a result of the newness factor for Bing? That was about their launch time and there appeared to be many television ads running. Do you think that Bing has the momentum to maintain these numbers and take over Yahoo? Even a Yahoo/Bing combo would result in 26% share (in theory) – what are they actively doing to eclipse Google?
Hey Margaret – The newness factor is a valid point, and that might be it. But in either case, it shows that many people are willing, and perhaps waiting, to try a Google alternative. So the potential is there.
I haven’t heard of any secret strategy from Microsoft to take over Google. But I’m sure they’ll think of something to give it a shot. Google has great tools, no doubt. But if Microsoft can make something really cool to work with Windows… it is still the most popular OS out there after all.
Let’s see, this is a subject I’m actually very interested. So if I hear of anything, I’ll post it here.
Thanks for the comment!
Jose