NOW THAT MICROSOFT HAS CREATED THEIR OWN SEARCH ENGINE, DO YOU THINK BING CAN COMPETE WITH GOOGLE AND YAHOO?

It already is competing.

I just wish people would give it a chance, instead of sticking to Google because it’s what they’ve always used, and it’s hard to imagine that maybe some search engine could be better.

I gave it a try, and I found some nice things about it, like:

1. Homepage is always something interesting – The homepage has a daily background that’s usually nice to look at, and the little Hotspots on the background have some cool tidbits you can search with. Also, if you’re not interested in that, the search box loads up first and the fastest.

2. Web results are more convenient – I like some of the Instant Answers that Bing comes up with. Like if it’s a very popular site, it will be the first results, and some important links (within the site) will be listed underneath. Sometimes even a search box will appear under the result so you can search within that site. Sometimes relevant news articles show up, weather, traffic data, etc. Also you can hover over a result, and a little thing will show up on the right of it that will show you a text preview of how the query relates to the site.

3. Superb image search – There’s infinite scroll, so you don’t have to click extra pages to find better images. It’s a clean results page, and you can hover over a thumbnail for extra info., and there are some really great filters so you can a more exact image. You can even create a collection of images you like by dragging them to the Scratchpad so you can look at all the ones you like when you’re finished.

4. Awesome video search – Bing has to be the best on the web. The neat thing about Bing’s is that you can hover over a thumbnail and it will play a preview of the video, so you don’t have to “guess and click” a result, and find that you wasted your time. Also, it searches many video sites and regular sites.

5. Shopping is better on Bing – You can find a LOT of good deals, because there is something called Cashback and you can get a percentage of the regular price paid back to you, depending on what store you buy from. It’s like a rebate, but online and with definitely more certainty. Also, each product has user reviews and specs/features that are really handy to look at.

I might even consider switching full time, but it will be hard leaving a search engine I’m used to.