New body, Old parts

As many of you might already know about Microsoft's recently launched new search engine, or analyzer, or travel planner or whatever they want to call it, yes I am talking about "Bing". There's a lot in the air about Bing with stories on Popular News websites tech tab to fellow bloggers blogging about it. So I am here to make justice to my Blog and give it the piece of fair share. Why the hell should it be deprived from the happiness of spreading sheer criticism?

Bing, well..ok..."weird name!" first of all. The search engine claims to be not only a search engine, but your travel planner, a decision engine etc (read more). According to Microsoft, Bing will be able to: make a purchase decision, planning a trip, research a health condition, and finding a local business. To be honest, I do not see any new or "Whoa!!"-factor in all the four verticals. I somehow find "Bing", a concoction of all the little good things that pre-existed over the internet. Bing gives you a good background image every time you open a page, or a new theme. Quite sometimes back I was doing a comparative study (not that "Thesis" kind, just a small research) on search engines, and found little sweet search engine known as Ask.com. I am not sure as of how many people know about it, but it has that wonderful theme and background thingie that "Bing" flamboyantly shows-off , and thats not all, once you have an account of yours with Ask.com, you'll be able to set your own backgrounds for the page too!! You can then set your own close-up, smiling face snap of yours taken at the Goa trip or at the amusement park, so that you get to see your own (or your loved one's smiling face every-time you search stuffs (legal or illegal) over the internet. Surprisingly, Bing's look and feel are a lot more similar to Ask than to Google or any other search site.

Bing also says that "I'll plan your travel" or "I will help you plan your travel" and so does Kayak.com . For people unaware of Kayak.com : It is a travel search engine website based out of United States, and un-surprisingly the similarity between Bings travel plan page & Kayaks travel search page is so striking that it is now confusing Kayak users. Kayak's interface is in-line with Cleartrip's interface for domestic users, an ideal Web2.0 example. This act of Microsoft made Kayak send them a legal letter.... "Cut it off!!"..."Leave us alone!!"..."Stop cloning us!!" must've been Kayaks words. I wonder why MS did not include the Mathematical "analyzer thing in Bing" (that rhymes, and it sounds odd!) just like Wolframalpha. But wait!! who would like to experiment with an approach thats in experiment mode itself, "Let them launch the Beta, we'll pull it on then!! eh eh!!"...

Note: The images above a free images available over Google.