The Decision Engine

Microsoft started a war that they had no business sticking their noses in, but which just might have an unexpected, positive outcome. I'm not talking about Microsoft versus Macintosh (now known as Mac or Apple), because in that case I'm not too sure who really started the war, and I prefer Microsoft anyways. No, I'm talking about the search engine war between Microsoft's Bing and Google.

Google wasn't the first major search engine - I'm sure everyone remembers Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. Google, I believe, was the first major engine after Yahoo, however, and it achieved greater success than all the previous search engines for one simple reason: even the slowest browser will load the Google page in just one second. Yahoo became littered with facts and news and email applications, but the page you get after typing google.com into the URL box consists of a simple logo on a white backdrop, a text box, and a few links to advanced options. When looking something up, Google users don't get distracted by flashy text or gifs or roll-over images.

Microsoft launched Bing in June, 2009, riding a bit on the popularity of Google (Much like how Microsoft jumped on the video game bandwagon with their Xbox after Sony and Nintendo and Sega). They advertised themselves as a 'decision engine', helping users make decisions fast and easy without the distractions other search engines had. Microsoft's previous search engine, Live Search, had been released two years earlier, so Bing is more of a glorified update than anything. Google had existed by this time for ten years, but had only recently become popular enough to get their name (A misspelling of the word googol) in the dictionary, and the timing to me seems to suggest that Microsoft, at this point, realized the monetary possibilities of a well-working search engine.



Bing only holds 3% of online internet users (Compared to the 91% Google holds, according an an unreliable graph I found on Wikipedia), but that can be considered a relative victory, since every other search engine in the past two decades has seemed to fail. Granted, it's only in the second year, but they have quite a few loyal users and plenty of recruitment commercials working for them. The Bing page changes with a new image daily, each image offering multiple links to various relevant search terms to pique users' interests; but I have to wonder how long it takes most people in Internet Explorer to load that page, and how much time they waste before they finally get around to their intended search.

I personally prefer Google. I find Bing clumsy and awkward, and when I use it I generally don't get the search results I'm looking for. There's so much happening on any given Bing page, that I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do at times; if I took the time to get to know Bing a bit more, I'm sure I'd find it amazing like everyone who uses it says, but isn't the point of a search engine to get in, find out what you need to know, and move on? Isn't that what the Bing commercials advertise? Bing claims to be a 'decision engine', but I spend more time on that website trying to find out what's going on than doing any actual deciding (And besides, the claim is flat out untrue. A decision engine-based search engine would personalize the search results based on past input and create a user profile for the IP address, which is similar to what Facebook does, if you need an example, and Bing does not).

Last September, Google announced a new added feature to their search engine, aptly named Google Instant. Anyone who's used the internet in the past six months knows what I'm talking about, but in case you forgot, I'm now talking about the instant search feature Google added, which computes the letters as you type them and loads your search result before you've even finished the search term - which means, once you have finished the term, Google needs to resend their internet searching spiders and reload the page with the right information, because of course Google doesn't know that when you typed in 'sea' you were trying to search for 'seasonal affective disorder'.

Before Google released Google Instant, I was getting a bit wary of the company, which owns Youtube, a lot of internet advertising, their own email server, a cell phone company, and even the website I'm writing this blog on. As a devout capitalist, I believe that no one company should own an entire market, but up until this point I was willing to suggest Google own the internet search engine service, since they had already been doing such a great job. Google Instant, however, was the last straw. (Dan Bergstein wrote a wonderful article on Barnes and Noble Review that I think perfectly captures the essence of Google Instant.)

With my mind now disillusioned, I'm beginning to see all the terrible possibilities with Google. Yes, they did a fantastic job creating their search engine, but now they practically control what people find on the internet. If Google doesn't list a website in their search, how are you ever going to find it? This could potentially sway political movement, social norms, or even the economy. This may sound extreme, but it's true - if Google refuses to advertise for a company, they aren't as likely to make it, and if Google only lists sites as long as they conform to a social viewpoint, then anything outside that viewpoint will become obsolete. Google could convince you to buy products you can't afford, outsource your work crew, or vote a certain person into office!

Google isn't doing this now, and given Google's track record I doubt they ever will. But they've already convinced us to put up with their ridiculous Google Instant feature - a feature which could be turned off but only if you go through a short (but tedious, if you have to do it every time you log on) process, or sign up with Google for a personalized homepage. This, in my opinion completely goes against what Google's original goal was, to make searching easy, simple, and fast.

How many people stopped using Google because of their stupid Instant feature? I know I sure didn't - I hated it, and I have been relying on Google's browser toolbar for the most part, but I still type in Google instead of Bing when I need to look something up. And I hate the fact that Google's just so dang wonderful that they can do whatever they want with little repercussion. For this reason, while I continue to use Google and can't understand why anyone would prefer Bing over it, I also lend my support to the 9% minority of internet users who don't use Google for their internet search engine needs. Google needs to have challengers working on their heels to keep them in line; that's how capitalism works. As long as Google still has to work to maintain our loyalty, they'll be fair and honest. Once we hand our minds over to them, however, we'll never be able to get them back.