Archive for July, 2009

Achtung Google, here comes Bing!!

July 31st, 2009 | Posted by Sahil Arora

Bing is the latest talk of the Web town! Successor to Live.com, Microsoft’s new hope Bing has captured the Search Engine arena and armed itself with an advanced weapon to crunch Google’s market share in the coming time. (Well, surely time will tell more about that!)

Planning to spend a whopping $100 Million on its advertising, seems Microsoft is hell bent in making ‘Bing’ a well known brand name by the time the campaigns are over!

It’s Microsoft’s endeavour to compete with Google in their game. History reveals a lot about their obvious prior attempts to do so, but it was dust all the way in Microsoft’s hands, eyes, even in mouth!
But this time, Steve Ballmer seems to be playing much more safer. It starts with his naming his Search Engine “Bing”! “The name is short, easy to say, and works globally.”
I guess he is right! After all, Microsoft has always been known for naming its product in a crisp manner just like “Internet Explorer” or perhaps “Office”. Bing is something innovative, short, and sweet and perhaps looks trendier.

A “Decision Engine” as they call it, has that “effervescent” factor to it with its high end graphics, glossy feel, awesome pop up dialog effects, and well, its not just limited to the design!
The Search Results are more refined and more “on topic” than the previous blatant Live.com results. Hence, it’s not just something for play, as Microsoft plans doing some serious business this time!

We just tested this much hyped Bing.com against Google for a search term “Fathers Day” and guess what?? Bing.com has superb results to offer, while Google has its conventional set of results.
Well, according to us, this new “Decision Engine” actually works!
How? Well, see this…

Bing Search - Fathers Day Query

Bing Search - Fathers Day Query

 Well, for starters, at least this newbie shows when “Father ’s Day” is celebrated! Something any surfer would want to be informed about first!
On the other hand we have our very own Google, which had something else for us to see. Check this…

Google Search - Fathers Day Query Results

Google Search - Fathers Day Query Results

Bing had almost 158,000,000 results for the term, and that too precisely sorted, while Google has lesser results and that too with a “News” section as a result on top of it. Not to forget the usual Youtube.com link which comes up for this search! Sigh!
Seriously Google, did you really think we were there to read News on Father’s Day!

Anyhow, certainly Bing.com gets the accolades for showing up informational results, or at least the ones we wanted to see first! Now that’s a smart decision there!

But wait, we have some more insight for you on this new kid in the block! For the terms that are not so popular, Bing actually has the same feel as Google, as it just shows those heavy Sponsored listings on top of the page and on the right as well.

But the “one of its kind” feature that Bing.com gives its users is that, if you hover over the link towards the left, then it’ll actually show you a brief description of what that page actually contains in terms of text on the extreme right of the SERPS.
Now that’s something refreshing!
We think, Google has a long way to go on this route! Right guys? 😉

But hold on here guys, we’re not suggesting that we love Bing.com just the way it is! As far as we’re concerned, it still needs a little polishing here and there. But then, we surely think it’s far better than some of the other SE choices we have, “Wolfram Alpha” for starters! Well, alright, let’s not go there; it’s not even in the league of comparisons!

Coming back to Bing, according to Microsoft, they’ve been working to enhance it even more, and not only for the US version, but for the location specific versions. Good thing!
Seems like this time Microsoft has its eye right on the target and knows how to reach there. The pointer still aims at Yahoo which almost has twice the market share than Live.com. Good enough Mr. Ballmer, coz if Google is your target, you’ll at least end up beating Yahoo on way we assume. Things with Bing.com look good for now, but we think it’s too early for a final verdict.

For now, all we can say is Good Luck Bing… and happy reading green-eyed Google!

And for all of you who’ve had a look at this latest “Bing” buzz in the Search Engine market, tell us what you feel! Do you think this “Bing” has that “Bling”?

Shutterfly does it for us: Video Sharing is here to stay!

July 22nd, 2009 | Posted by Bhavya Kapoor

For all you photo sharing fans, the much awaited is here! Shutterfly has come up with a whole new feature of ‘Video Sharing’. Isn’t it just amazing? With new video sharing facility to offer, this photo sharing site is truly on its job of targeting more and more visitors and online surfers.

Clearly, it can be seen as an attempt to be among one of those photo sharing sites that also have video sharing capabilities. In short, it’s the competition that gets things done. In order to run its new video sharing service, Shutterfly makes use of a smart and modern video hosting site called Motionbox. The Motionbox site driven video sharing technology on Shutterfly allows fans a more convenient way to enjoy there purpose, of being on site like Shuttefly. Way to go shutterfly!

Now when a Shutterfly member, like me, uploads a video on the site, it will automatically get stored on the Motionbox account of that member. On the other hand, if the video is uploaded directly on Motionbox, the member would be given an option to post the same video on his/her Shutterfly account. Sounds interesting.

With that being said, we can now share the videos on our preferred social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Apparently this service is not just an attractive addition to the site, but is also quite easy to use and enjoy. Although free account members will face limited storage space for their video uploads good enough for only ten video clips uploads, Whereas paid members (with #30 per year) are powered with facilities like HD-quality playback, limitless downloads and more.

Current services of Shutterfly includes photo sharing services as well as printing services which allows them to enjoy more than a feature of printing photos, it lets them get a print of their photos and memories on cards, apparel, mugs and more. With the launch of this new feature, we are hoping to look forward to addition of customized DVD clips. If it does offer the customized DVDs, Shutterfly followers can put a DVD together with pictures of their loved ones and family members together.

An endeavor towards becoming a must-to visit website for sharing photos and video clips, Shutterfly is moving towards becoming a steady part of the competitive dot-com industry it seems. All thanks to the competitors for innovating things and we the people are here to enjoy the benefits of it. : )