That Kumo thing we were all abuzz about for a while is not going to be called Kumo at all. Instead, Microsoft will be calling their new search engine Bing, which is apparently set to launch this Wednesday.
As many a pundit and pedestrian have noted, Microsoft does not stand a chance in the search game unless it can do what Google does but better, or do search in a different way. Microsoft seems to have opted to merge these two by creating a search engine that returns tabulated results, organized in such a way as to make it simple to find your information. So if you searched for Loathing, for example, it would put results for the film Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas in one place and information about the game Kingdom of Loathing in another.
One of the most interesting features is found in the tutorial video, in which the narrator tells users that going through Bing to some online merchants can result in “cash back.” While internet retail giant Amazon seems aloof to Bing (based on the picture), other retailers are offering some benefits to Bing users. That should be enough to get us into using Bing at least for the first week or so. But whether or not Bing’s current set of features is enough to make a dent in Google is still anyone’s guess.
