Microsoft tries to kill Google: How Successful?

Well now that Bing.com is live, see for yourself and judge how well Microsoft's Search Engine is doing. We all know the story of MSN.com and how its was always number 3 on SEO after the prince Yahoo. The undisputed king of search remain Google for its ever changing SEO algorithms.

Google is a verb to us for many a reasons, principally for innovation and 'relevant content is gold' mantra. However, if you play around with Bing, you will discover a lot of cool features and certainly not Google's "Did you mean" feature :) - when one has a typo. In a way its less annoying but some people do like that option. if one types in "ouTube" in  Bing, it directly shows YouTube.com. In case of Google, the same search would also show 'Outube Videos' - a relevant subject matter.

Let's not take sides just yet but highlight couple of key usability features as an end-user and  SME.  Spending 100 million dollars in ad campaign is yet to ensure the user base Microsoft would like to have. 

If one googles the keywords "google", "yahoo" and "bing" at Google.com or Yahoo - 10 relevant results come up. Do the same at Bing, you get 1 result for each Google and Yahoo. But when you search "bing", the engine delivers 15 links and 4 video results! [Search Result as of June 17th 2009]

Well, now you know how to eliminate SEO/SEM rivals :)

Biggest claim on Live Search promoting Silverlight, bing doesn't demonstrate that fire power in the results published above. We can expect Microsoft to force Bing down Windows customers' throat in upcoming versions loaded in PC/laptops but will that make bing the search engine of choice?

This is only two weeks in the race for the Best Search Engine. However, it does look like Yahoo is likely to split a lot of its market share to Bing because of the later's clarity. Yahoo never really got the concept of 'less is more' and always bundled up services one after another. Don't get me  wrong, those are valued service offerings but one could be a little more strategic about the user interface. Bing has clarity and cleanliness - both aesthetically and technology architecturally!

After condemning its customers to suffering by launching Vista, Microsoft has actually offered something innovative and cool. If this is the way the company is deciding to move ahead, there just might be hope! Catching up with Google in Search business is just not going to happen  right away but not-that-far-cry either in my opinion.

Google or The PirateBay: Who will lead the free world of search

First, let me talk about what is BitTorrent and then we shall speculate about the freedom fight of "search" in the web sphere.

In simplistic explanation, BitTorrent is a a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol i.e. you share your file with others to view/use as they please without accessing your computer directly. To do so, one creates a "Torrent" file and uploads to any website who is willing to host the information. This torrent basically is the uploader's digital contact card with all product information - anyone can connect to this uploader/seeder and download the said product. The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website that indexes/ gathers information and tracks BitTorrent (.torrent) files. The organization claims to be "the world's largest BitTorrent tracker" and is ranked as the popular websites of the websphere.

So what does Pirate Bay do? And different from Google
Pirate bay gathers information exactly like google does and provides to any searcher - only difference is, the pirate bay specializes on search of torrents. One can also search torrents via Google. It should be also mentioned that they get paid by advertisers on their site(does Google AdSense ring a bell?) - for even adult content(like similar versions of Adult Friend Finder etc.).
From 2003, the pirate bay has been providing this service at no cost to any web searcher.

Pause to think, why Gutenberg made his first press? Was it not to share knowledge? If history serves me right, he didn't charge for the 1st copy of printed Bible... neither did Einstein for his theories or formulas! If you wished to share a book you bought in 1700s with a million people in a gathering by reading aloud, would the writer be angry or would the architect of the published book go after your neck? No. because it was pure joy to spread knowledge.

So what has changed now that these four freethinkers of PirateBay are imprisoned to provide a platform to share? Copyright! I personally believe that the maker/author of any product/services should get credit for their creation/s. But what of the middlemen who reap the benefit? Take big record companies for example; writers, musicians, singers, music directors, technical producers go through a lot of pain to produce a song - so they should be rewarded but do you know how much of that $20 (average price of CDs) goes to these folks? Very little, and most goes to the label company for creating bureaucracy! Would you not like to pay the involved people directly? Even if you pay them double of what they get per CD, it won't probably exceed $10.

The choice is up to us and the original manufacturers (artisans - sorry for the middle age term but it is proudly befitting). I would suggest the "Artisans" do direct business in a B to C model via web sphere. Companies like Google and Pirate Bay can be the free providers of search - this way we all are winners. Apple's iTunes can easily embrace this model.

IF freedom we all want, let us stand up to the big corporates and make them change their business model.

It is 12.29 PM US EST and we can't view the world's biggest Bit-Torrent website. However, I would like to share the following news from BBC, which tells us the arrest of the PirateBay leaders last April.