Continuations

Yesterday it was revealed that Microsoft is clearly using Google search results and people’s clicks as an input to Bing’s algorithms. That raises a bunch of interesting questions about who owns what online. First, let’s talk about where Microsoft could have this data from. There are two possible sources: Internet Explorer and any Microsoft browser plugins (e.g., conceivably something like Silverlight could do this). In either case this may or may not be a violation of the terms of service tha...

I have been trying out Bing last week, as has Fred, and the team at Clickable (and probably a lot of other folks). Generally, the verdict seems to be that it’s not terrible but has some obvious shortcomings, especially when it comes to integrating blog and very recent content. Despite these shortcomings, I do believe that Bing represents a real challenge for Google because of its design. This is not just a question of Bing adding some “bling” (could not resist) in the form of a picture on the...