WELCOME TO MICROSOFT BING

Before you dive into a whole load of information . Here's a little preview to the search engine Bing by Microsoft.

You can check out the provided website links, video bar on the column located on the left of this page. You can watch a variety of videos by changing the settings -click the icon on the bottom right of the the 'youtube' sign. Once in a while the video bar offers random, non-bing related videos...you can

1. Refresh the page (you might have to refresh more than once)
2. Access the settings page by clicking the icon situated on the bottom right of the 'youtube' sign. Once the settings page pops up, all you have to do is press save and the bing-related videos come back.

Additional Quick links

http://www.bing.ca/

Video http://www.youtube.com/user/bing?blend=1&ob=4

Bing Site http://www.discoverbing.com/ -If your new to Bing, you should treat yourself by taking this chance and getting to know it. In my experience, it definitely saves a lot of time by providing me relevant search results. It also embodies some of the latest technology such as the Bing maps street side view.

Bibliography

http://econbylorraine.wikispaces.com/bibliography

How Search Engines make a profit

"Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is 'the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via 'natural' or unpaid ('organic' or 'algorithmic') search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM), which deals with paid inclusion. "-wikipedia. After half a year of using Bing, Search Engine Optimization seems to stand out more to me than Search Engine Marketing. The reason for this is that Bing's popularity mainly comes by giving the most relevent search results (a form of product differentiation). And like SEO, Bing "target[s] different kinds of search, including imagesearch, local searc, video search..."-Wikispedia. However, just because Bing shows a non-proft characteristic, doesn't mean that Microsoft doesn't find other ways to make money...this leads to the topic of... HOW SEARCH ENGINES MAKE PROFIT

The following link elaborates on how Search Engines make Money in General. These 'ways' can be categorized or defined as the product because it is what the Bing employees can sell.

http://econbylorraine.wikispaces.com/How+a+Search+Engine+makes+profit+1

Graph

Demand curve

• has become more elastic and shifted to the left when Bing entered this industry. Website maximizers (such as customers who pay for better placement) can now substitute into another search engine- Bing being less popular than others such as Google, will probably charge a smaller price to gain customers
• The demand will later shift to the right for Bing, if and when Microsoft's search engine becomes more popular. This will happen because if more people use this engine, bing's list products will be of better quality and thus desired more by customers. An example is data collection-if a greater population type searches on bing, perfect information of a greater population can be attained. This definitely entices customers and their companies because it can benefit them a great deal...and bing, knowing that perfect information is vital to companies, would maximize by charging a higher price for their better quality data.

Oligopoly Characteristics

Few, Large big players

Google is the main player in the Search marketing Industry. Other dominating players and competitors of Bing are Yahoo (18%) and 'the others' include AOL and ASK.



















Brand Loyalty is a huge factor that hinders Bing's success. To overcome this barrier, Bing needs to differentiate itself and promote a sense of uniqueness that appeals to many. It also needs to 'hold on' to its users in some way. Therefore, like Google, Bing offers accounts such as the Bing Maps account. It tries to increase its presence on websites by bringing up aspects such as Bing Maps toolbar- These functions help keep users attached to Bing by making them form a sense of 'bonding' with the search engine. (Note: presence is great advertisement for search engines. Ex. on blogspot, you can add a search function on the side column. This function is powered by Google...this shows me that even if I don't use Google Search very often, it's hard to avoid using it because this company has expanded its influence out of it's homepage).



Product Differentiation

One of Bing's main focus' is providing relevant search results, well-organized visually and contextually, that help users accomplish tasks and save time.

• Providing Relevant search results is Bing's main focuses. In my opinion, Microsft invests more time in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) than Search Engine Marketing. SEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et0rUzRAXGE, http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Microsoft+Bing+%22Decision+Engine%22&docid=1399802758616&mid=115E1671FD11EF1CBDCA115E1671FD11EF1CBDCA&FORM=LKVR28#
  
  
• Unique home page: Bing changes it's home page picture on the daily basis. In addition to this, each new homepage provides links to educational facts on the picture. (check is neat site out via http://www.bing.ca/ . At the bottom right hand corner, there are arrows that take you to previous home page pictures. Simply move your cursor around the picture and you'll learn some 'fun facts')



• Image Search is made extra easy and fast because it is backed by infinite scroll. Check out http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Northern+cardinal+filterui%3aphoto-photo&qpvt=Northern+cardinal&FORM=I0IL1# for a preview.



• Video Search is outstanding because of its Video preview function which lets a bing user catch a glimpse of the main/best part of a video. This saves time because now a video searcher wouldn't need to watch the entire video in order to see if it is the one they want. Check out http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Northern+cardinal&FORM=BVFD# for a preview.



• Bing Iphone application was recently launched. Not a lot of seach engines have this.
  

Horizontal Merger

Microsft Bing has a 'coopetition' with Yahoo. The 'Cooperation/competition' in other words 'coopetition' will happen near the beginning of 2010. Basically, Microsoft thinks the best way to take on Google is by gaining more users- users from Yahoo. What Microsoft did was simple. They offered to power Yahoo searches so yahoo doesn't have to pay to give the search results. The real intentions may not seem obvious at first but the question that yahoo users will ask themselves is "if Yahoo is being powered by the Microsft bing, why not just use Bing?"


Interdependence


As Bing increasingly improves their search engine functions, we see their biggest competitor, Google, modify their search engine as well. One can now see there has been a 'role reversal'- Google is now having to play 'catch up' with Bing, rather the other way around. Bing's search similar features was recently 'copied' by Google who launched Similar Images.

No doubt, Bing has captured users because of its convenient search functions (such as Search Similar). In my opinion, if Bing continues this 'role reversal', Google might end up becoming an extension of Bing, a second, lower class search engine.


Bing's previous 'catch ups' to Google

1. Launching the Bing iphone application


2. Google's 'Google Goggles' is replicated by Bing's Visual Search
   

Something to point out is that 'catch up' isn't the only game played by both of these Search Engines. Rather these search engines are trying hard to find ways in which they can gain back/gain more users. An example would be the integration of 'Twitter results' by both Bing and Google- an attempt to increase the popularity of their search engines.

Implicit Costs

The second best alternative to investing money and effort into Bing, is putting money and effort into improving products such as Microsoft Zune, Windows phone, Xbox...products which are already quite successful. In my opinion, bringing up a new search engine can come at a high opportunity cost: Search engines are classified as oligopolies, chances of success are slim and therefore, Microsoft has a high chance of wasting a lot of money, effort and time in producing non-successful search engine.

Short Run

Bing has continually thrived-(see www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/06/24/bing-related-statistics-continue-to-rise and www.gs.statcounter.com/FusionChartsSave.php);

It has not reached the point where Marginal Revenue = Marginal Social Costs and therefore has not reached Diminishing Marginal Returns as it is still experiencing Economies of Scale.


Microsoft Bing's main fixed costs are land and capital. According to Betsy Aoki of Microsoft, Bing is just starting up and office expansion won't happen soon. We know that Bing's labor is increasing because they need more workers in order to advance their researches in areas such as technology...this is done so they can 'catch up' or get ahead in the search engine industry.

Ex. computer engineering- Microsoft needs more computer engineers to do research in order reach their goal of providing the most relevent search results in comparison to other search engines with high concentration ratios- in otherwords, Bing needs more workers to help product differentiate, which will help them gain more customers and Bing users.

Notable points

Efficiency

Microsoft Efficiency involves Specialization. According to Betsy Aoki, Senior Program Manager Audience Public Relations of Microsoft, Bing is broken into team arrangements...

Microsoft engineering teams are broken into devlopers, testers, and program managers, with layers of management above them. Also included engineering is UX (user experience) which incorporate things such as designing web pages and doing usability studies.

"Web feature teams are usually cross-discipline teams. So you might ahve a tester, developer and a program manager assigned to build one small part of Bing.

"Most Marketing teams are organized by marketing function-media buying, corporate communications, etc. There are also business development, legal and PR teams generally associated with Microsoft products."