WEBVTT - The Story of Microsoft Bing 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.960 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.279 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.680 tech are you So. On May twenty eight, two thousand 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:28.200 and nine, Microsoft's CEO, who at that time was Steve 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:33.760 Developers Developers Developers Ballmer, appeared at the All Things Digital 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:39.840 conference to announce the company's new search engine BING. Previously, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.920 Microsoft's search tool was called Live Search, but like just 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.360 about any company not named Google, Microsoft was kind of 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.159 fighting for scraps now. At that time, Google boasted a 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:57.200 sixty four point two percent market share for search. Yahoo 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:01.680 took second place with twenty point four percent. Live Search 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.959 was quietly in the corner with just eight point two 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.319 percent of the market share. Now that's according to CNN's 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.759 David Goldman, who wrote about bing's announcement back in two 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.280 thousand and nine. To be fair, Google had a heck 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.280 of a head start on Microsoft in the search department. 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:25.080 Google Search initially launched in September nineteen ninety eight, and 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:29.360 Microsoft didn't introduce the beta for Live Search until March 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.200 of two thousand and six. Though the company had toyed 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.080 with search earlier after acquiring the live dot com site 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.480 in two thousand and five, and had in fact introduced 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:44.559 ms in search in nineteen ninety nine, but that one 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.200 was powered by a third party search provider. It wasn't 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:53.880 Microsoft actually powering the search tools. Well. Google rose quickly 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.480 in the ranks of search engines, largely because Google's page 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.520 erank system seemed to have an almost supernatural knack for 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.480 returning the best search results at the top of the list. 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.760 Google was quick to adjust its approach to mitigate web 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.200 designers who used every trick in the book to try 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:15.120 and fool search engines into listing their sites. For example, 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.400 in ye olden days, a common ruse was to dump 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:23.560 a dictionary's worth of search terms onto a web page, 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.080 and usually you would do it in very very tiny 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.760 text at the bottom of the page. Sometimes you would 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.560 just change the text color to match the background of 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:33.880 the web page so that people couldn't even see that 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.400 there was text down there, and it would just be 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.200 a pit of seemingly random words. But the goal was 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.680 to get a hit on search engines that were crawling 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.280 the web, that were just looking for pages that contain 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.320 certain search query terms, and sure visitors to that page 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.320 were almost certain to get frustrated when they saw that 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.960 the thing they were looking for wasn't there. But that 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.000 didn't really matter. What mattered was getting that page view 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.240 count up so that you could sell ads on the page, 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:09.800 because capitalism. Anyway. Google had been growing its influence in 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.640 the search market for years by the time Microsoft launched 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.960 Live Search in two thousand and six, and this wasn't 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.480 just a case of Microsoft wanting to take a step 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.960 from Google's milkshake. In fact, it was more like the opposite, 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.480 because since two thousand and three, at least according to 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:31.280 Fortune magazine, Bill Gates, the co founder and former CEO 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.280 of Microsoft, was starting to get a real bad feeling 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.280 about Google. He noticed that Google had been advertising job 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.120 positions that sounded a lot more like a company that 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.160 was looking to get into OS design operating system design 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.720 rather than just you know, staying in their lane and 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:52.080 focusing on search. Gates sniffed out a potential competitor, and 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.120 it was a competitor that was building up momentum, and 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.240 that was something he didn't like very much. Now you 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.400 might think that what I'm in applying is that Bill 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.120 Gates doesn't like competition. Let me be clear, I believe 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.400 Bill Gates loves competition because he loves the feeling of 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:13.920 squashing competition out of existence, either through acquiring the competitor or, 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:19.040 if possible, making some deals that absolutely destroy the competitor. Now, 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.719 maybe I'm off base. Maybe my perception of Bill Gates 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.160 and his approach to business is not at all accurate, 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.839 but it sure does feel right to me. But back 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.360 to web search. So Steven Sinofsky, who was head of 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:37.200 Windows as well as the Office suite of Productivity Software, 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.839 wrote a book last year. It was published. It was 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.640 titled Hardcore Software Inside the Rise and Fall of the 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.719 PC Revolution, And in that book, among lots and lots 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.480 of other stories, he talks about the early days of 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:56.080 Microsoft getting into web search. Sinofsky would be included in 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.520 the web search team after it had already formed and 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.360 had built to prototype version of the search tool. Christopher Pain, 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.919 who would become VP of Windows Live Search, pitched the 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.400 idea of a Microsoft search tool way back in February 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.640 two thousand and three. He didn't beat around the bush either. 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.520 He told his bosses that in order to build a 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.479 good search tool, one that could go toe to toe 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.120 with Google. It was going to take a huge investment, 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.640 like one hundred and fifty million bucks and a year 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.920 and a half of work at least, and that didn't 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.400 include the creation and maintenance of server farms that would 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.600 actually handle all the search traffic. But his pitch got 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.360 the thumbs up from his higher ups, and Project Underdog 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.200 was a go. So Christopher Pain then said upon the 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.760 launch of Live Search, quote, combined with the rich browsing 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:53.560 and integrated searching services delivered by Windows Live Toolbar and 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.600 Live dot com, the new search service offers customers the 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:03.800 next generation of unified services today, which doesn't mean much 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.240 on the surface, right, But some of those services that 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:11.520 Live Search would offer included the ability to preview search results, 0:06:11.680 --> 0:06:15.279 to do image searches, and to create search macros to 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.840 customize the experience to the user. So if you had 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.640 a very particular way you wanted to go about searches, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.279 you could create a macro for that and not have 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.839 to recreate it every single time you needed to use search. 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.119 But there was no question that Google was running away 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.520 with search, even as Microsoft argued that Live Search was 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.080 a more versatile tool than Google was. The hope was 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.760 that this new search engine, that Bing, which would replace 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.800 Live Search, would rise to the challenge and wrestle away 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:50.039 a good chunk of that dominant market position from Google. 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:55.280 Spoiler alert, that would not happen. So, according to stat counter, 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:00.159 Google currently enjoys an even more dominant position than it 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:05.480 did before. Right when Live Search debuted, Google held you know, 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:10.800 sixty four percent of the global market. Well, stat counter 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.240 says that Google today has around ninety percent of the 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.440 market share for web search and Bing has less than 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.000 five percent. Now, I should add that's from an analysis 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.080 of the market from just one company, and in previous 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.200 reporting in twenty twenty four, stat Counter indicated that Google 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:31.960 had actually taken a pretty massive hit in market share, 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.920 dropping as low as eighty six point five to eight percent. Now, 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.120 in an earlier report, that drop was even more drastic. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.320 Stat Counter analyzed and said that it was down to 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.040 seventy seven point five to two percent. However, they later 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.560 revised that saying that that was an error. But even 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.480 at the lowest point, even with the error, like, let's 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.440 say that seventy seven point five two percent was actually accurate, 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.640 that's still higher than the market share Google enjoyed back 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.680 in two thousand and nine when Microsoft first announced BING. 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.480 So even if you say, yeah, Google took a big hit, 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.760 it's still higher market share than it had when Microsoft 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.679 was trying to take a swing at the king. Now. 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.960 Some thought that when Microsoft announced BING that it was 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.920 really just a rebranding of Live Search, that all Microsoft 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.560 had really done was collect the various features of Live 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.600 Search under a more unified approach and then rebranded it BING. 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.280 And from what I can tell, that's a fairly accurate 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.920 take on what had happened. Not that Microsoft didn't introduce 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.680 new features, but ultimately this was really an attempt to 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:46.000 have BING be memorable and to stand out because Live 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:50.560 Search just wasn't ringing in the ears of the web 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.200 denizens out there, and hopefully BING would be able to 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.880 attract curious users who would use it and then find 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:02.120 they preferred Microsoft's approach to Google's. According to a blog 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.440 post by trung fon Bing beat out the name Bang 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.320 as the actual name for the search tool, that Microsoft 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.080 had been debating between Bang and Bang, and that they 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.920 chose Bing because well, you know, we use Google as 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:21.920 a verb, right, Like I googled that for you? For example, 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:27.079 if people were to use bang as a verb that, well, 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:31.120 it's best we just leave that one alone. Plus Fn says, 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.079 some folks would argue that BING is actually an acronym. 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.680 I think this is playful. It's not really an acronym, 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:42.600 but folks enjoy saying it is that being stands for, 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.640 but it's not Google. Satya Nadella, who would later go 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.480 on to become CEO of the whole Ding dang dern 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.400 Company of Microsoft, was put in charge of the development 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.200 and launch of BING. He would then go on to 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:02.280 oversee cloud services before becoming ce of the overall company. Now, 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:07.160 in case you're curious, Statista has a different picture of 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:11.000 global web search market share in that as of January 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.840 twenty twenty four, it estimates Google holding nearly eighty two 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.760 percent of the market and being at a fairly nice 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.000 ten point five to one percent, so like double what 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.760 stat Counter had suggested. So, according to Statista, Microsoft has 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.880 actually made some gains in its overall market share by 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:32.439 switching from live Search to Bang as if you remember, 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.600 Live Search was hovering at around eight percent. However, since 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.440 Google also saw gains in that time, you could really 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.439 make the argument that Microsoft's bump did not come at 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:48.360 the cost of Google. Instead, Microsoft's bump came from Yahoo's decline. Anyway, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.160 back to the announcement. At All Things Digital, Steve Baumer 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.720 took the stage and he claimed that quote BING enable 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.160 people to find information quickly and use the information they 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:03.040 found to accomp tasks and make smart decisions. End quote. 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.280 That is a direct quote. So that's why there's some 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.679 mangled syntax in there. I didn't misspeak, that's just what 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.760 Baumer said. But what he was saying is that BING 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.800 wasn't a search engine, not at all. It's not a 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.880 search engine. It was a decision engine. So what does 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.920 that mean, Well, I would argue it doesn't really mean 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:27.080 much of anything. Bing operates as a search engine, but 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.560 the implication here is that BING would return more relevant 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.520 results to queries and less junk and ads, so that 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.000 you would actually get the information you needed in order to, 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.480 you know, do something else to make a decision. He said, 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.000 this is what is relevant when you are searching for 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.360 something like People don't search just to search like they're 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.839 unless you're just really bored. You're not going onto a 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:56.280 search engine to search random topics. Typically you're searching for 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.120 a reason, and it's often so that you can make 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.920 a decision about out something. So that's I think what 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.839 he meant by a decision engine. This was the tool 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.240 you would use to get the information you needed in 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.360 order to make that decision. Now, that decision might be 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.400 related to, you know, searching for a restaurant or planning 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.600 a vacation, or doing a job search or something like that. 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.760 And the slogan that they used was bing and Decide. 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.240 There were a lot of jokes about being about the 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:27.840 name being, which typically happens in the tech sphere whenever 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:32.640 there's a new tech service or product introduced, Invariably there 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.680 are a lot of jokes made about whatever people decided 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:40.920 to name that thing. I'm thinking of, stuff like the iPad. Obviously, 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:47.440 Microsoft's own Zoon MP three player had a feature called 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.880 Squirt where you could share a music track with another 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.800 Zoom user, and I can't tell you how many jokes 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.400 were made about that. So yeah, there were a lot 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:00.600 of jokes being made quickly following this announcement. Now, initially 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:05.320 Bing's search offered four different flavors. If you will, you 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:10.480 could search in health, local businesses, travel, and purchases. So 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.480 at the get Go. It had a much more focused 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.000 approach to search, and the plan was always to expand 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.160 on this and not relegate BEING to some sort of 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.400 niche search engine that you'd only use for things like, 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.120 you know, shopping online or something, or needing to find 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:30.280 a doctor in your area. They wanted it to be 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:36.120 useful in all different realms, but they had specific subcategories 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.679 of search that would, in theory at least, really focus 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.880 the results on whatever it is you were looking for. 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.520 As Goldman pointed out in that CNN piece I mentioned earlier, 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.120 the tool was quote set up to organize search results 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.040 in relevant groups rather than as a series of links. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.120 For instance, a search for flight to New York may 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.319 yield New York destinations like hotels, restaurants, and museums as 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.680 almost a guidebook page end quote. Presumably this was a 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.480 decision made not just to provide more utility to the 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:11.080 end user, but also to differentiate Being from Google. And 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:15.600 that's the beginning. We'll talk more about Microsoft and Being 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:17.760 in just a moment, but first let's take a quick 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:30.920 break to think our sponsors. We're back. Bing would present 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.280 the user with a pain called the explore pain. That's 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.000 pa in e and this pain would include a history 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.440 of searches and tools to navigate to specific results relating 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:46.600 to the query, and suggestions for related searches. It's obviously 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.120 changed over the years, but I used being to do 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.200 a search while I was researching this episode. I did 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.600 a search on the history of Being itself, and the 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.400 little panel on the left gave me tools to navigate 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.680 a Wikipedia article quickly so I could zip over to 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:06.480 relevant sections like history or features. Now I don't typically 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:08.840 use Wikipedia in my research, at least not as a 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.880 primary resource. I'll use it to find other resources on occasion, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.760 or to look for more information that flesh's stuff out, 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:20.640 but only then if that material has proper citation so 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.760 I can find the actual resources that provide that information. 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.160 Because old habits die hard. I'm not saying that Wikipedia 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:32.840 is a bad resource or that's misleading, but rather I 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.200 was trained to never use Wikipedia as a main source, 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.080 and that training has a firm hole of my behaviors 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.040 to this day. So I will read a Wikipedia article 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.760 and then follow the resources to read the stuff that 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.040 was used to generate those perspectives that are reflected in 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.160 the article. But yeah, I still don't use Wikipedia as 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.720 a main resource to this day. Anyway, Microsoft made some 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.760 big moves with BING. In July two thousand and nine, 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.000 after launching, the company reached a partnership agreement with Yahoo, 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.000 and BING would be used to power searches on Yahoo, 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.360 which was, of course a iconic web portal site. For 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.320 the longest time, Yahoo was one of the big names 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:18.200 in search before Google kind of eclipsed it, and this 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.080 is not that different from how Google negotiates to be 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.160 the default search engine on other platforms, such as the 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:29.360 default search on say, Apple devices. The original deal had 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.120 Yahoo agreed to carry BING ads on desktop searches, though 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.520 later the companies would renegotiate that so that fifty one 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.840 percent of ads would come from BING and the other 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.560 forty nine percent could come from Yahoo's Gemini platform or 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:47.960 any other third party company like Google. For example. In 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:52.240 twenty ten, Microsoft made a deal with Facebook so that 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.800 visitors on Facebook would get BING search results while searching 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.160 within the social network. So if you use the search 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:03.640 tool in face Book, you got BEING results. Similarly, Microsoft 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.800 would make a deal with Amazon so that Alexa, the 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:11.360 digital personal assistant, would actually draw from Being search results, 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.800 and in that way Microsoft was taking a page out 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.520 of Google's playbook, though on a much smaller scale. Still, 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:22.080 every percentage point of market share counts, and by counts, 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.600 I mean counts in the form of a couple of 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:29.640 billion dollars in revenue potentially per percentage. Those are huge stakes. 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.120 So when I talk about Google having a dominant position 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.919 and being being relegated to you know at most around 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.040 ten percent of the market share, that ten percent still 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.200 represents billions of dollars in revenue. This is a big deal. 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.399 So even if Microsoft's not dominating that space, it is 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.720 a significant contribution to revenue. So you know, no small 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.800 shakes there. In twenty twelve, a few different things happened. 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:01.480 For one thing, Microsoft introduced bing ads. Microsoft also introduced 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.680 a refresh in its layout and created what it called 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:07.880 a three column design which is kind of self explanatory, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.560 as well as a search plus social feature or the 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:16.320 social sidebar. Microsoft explained in a blog post that quote 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.080 ninety percent of people consult with a friend or expert 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.120 before making a decision, whether it's something as simple as 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.000 which train will take you uptown or who is the 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:30.000 best dentist in Boulder. Often people are the most trusted 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.159 source of information end quote. Now, I don't think that 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.600 comes as a shock to anyone. I think anyone kind 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.080 of can have a grasp that the opinions of people, 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:45.080 particularly people you know, hold more weight than anonymous information 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.920 posted on a website or a search results page. Online 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.160 retailers have been leaning on user reviews for decades as 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.000 a way to move merchandise. People trust the reviews of 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:59.159 other customers, unless, of course, those reviews end up not 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:04.159 reflecting actual customer experiences but are instead paid reviews. That 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.480 becomes a whole issue. But if the information is coming 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.560 from a person rather than a company or a soulless 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.160 search engine results page, it tends to carry more weight. 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:18.359 So it made sense to incorporate these social elements. So 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.399 the new design of Being in twenty twelve would feature 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:26.280 three columns. The leftmost column, the widest one, contained the 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.800 core search results for whatever the query was. Then in 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.879 the center column, which was a little bit more narrow, 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.240 you had the snapshot column. This one would contain relevant 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:41.080 information related to the query. So, for example, let's say 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.720 you were searching for information about a potential vacation destination. 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.720 Let's say you're on bing and you're doing a search 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.359 about Disney World. So the leftmost column you would have 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:55.280 links to things like probably the main Disney World web page, 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.720 but the central column could include information to stuff like 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:03.520 flights or details about hotels in the area, or even 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.080 restaurants in the area where you can make a reservation. 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.720 That kind of thing. Now, the third column, the social sidebar, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.120 contained information pulled from your friends as well as other 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:18.280 enthusiasts or experts that had content that relates to the 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:23.240 search query. So maybe you would search for disney World 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.440 and in that social sidebar you would see posts from 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:30.440 your friends, posts from Facebook, for example, of friends who 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.000 had gone to Disney World and stayed at a particular hotel. 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.439 Let's say they stayed at Disney World's Caribbean Beach Resort, 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:38.399 and you can see what they thought of the place. 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.960 You would never have to rely solely on marketing from 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.960 Disney itself, right, You could see what actual human beings 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.480 felt about the location, and you could use that to 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:52.800 help make your decision. And being could even help you 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.479 with this. They could identify folks in your friends circle, 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.439 such as on Facebook, who might know more about whatever 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.840 it is you were searching for. So if you didn't 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:02.960 find the information you needed or you wanted to have 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.720 the opinion of someone you trusted. It could say, Hey, 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.639 your friend Bob goes to Disney World all the time. 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.639 Ask Bob, Bob's going to give you the straight information 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:17.480 about the Caribbean Beach Resort. Microsoft called its approach always present, 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.480 never intrusive, which is important, right, like to be able 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:23.960 to say, Hey, you can leverage your friend group to 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.680 get more information about this. We'll even help identify who 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.920 those people are. That can come across as pretty creepy. Right. 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.400 It seems to suggest that Microsoft knows all about the 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.960 interests and experiences of your friends group, and that can 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:40.000 feel pretty intrusive. And Microsoft was trying to get ahead 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.680 of that saying oh, no, no, no, no, we're present, 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.679 but we're not trying to intrude upon everything. We're just 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.800 there as a resource to help you get more information 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.359 so you can make your decisions. That's a tricky path 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.800 to walk. It is hard to say, yeah, we're going 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.119 to point you in the right direction by having you 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.440 connect with people you actually know. Oh, but don't worry 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:03.680 about how we know that this is the right person 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.640 to talk about this thing. It's tough. Also, Microsoft updated 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:12.040 its slogan for its search engine, so earlier on it 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:16.200 was bing and decide, but in twenty twelve, Microsoft changed 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:21.480 it to bing is for hashtag doing. Microsoft maintained that 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.520 more often than not, people weren't just searching for something. 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:27.000 They weren't, you know, using search as the first step 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:31.439 to go down a rabbit hole of information. Typically, instead, 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.200 they were using it as the beginning of actually doing 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:38.280 something to take some form of action, as opposed to 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.240 just reading about stuff in a somewhat random fashion. If 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.080 you're searching for something, it's probably because you have a 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.879 plan to do something, whether that's by you know, pet 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:54.080 food or book travel plans, or find a new job, 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.240 whatever it may be. It wasn't just I'm just curious 0:22:57.520 --> 0:23:00.520 what kind of jobs does Facebook have right now. Over 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:05.120 the following years, Microsoft continued to invest in being Yahoo 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:08.719 would go into further decline and Bing would at least 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:11.840 take up some of that slack. Google would continue to 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:15.040 dominate the search market, but some folks were looking around 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.240 for an alternative to Google because, well, for a lot 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:22.000 of reasons, but some folks were looking for it because 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:26.280 Google's incorporation of paid search results was really irritating them. Now, 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.960 these are the ads that look like normal search results. 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:33.080 They are designated as ads. It's not like Google is 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:35.960 trying to completely pull the wool over your eyes, but 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:38.399 they typically are at the very top, right where you 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.639 would expect the best results to be. That's where the 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:45.159 advertised results are, and for a lot of people, it 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:48.840 can feel almost deceptive to see that the first answers 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:51.399 to whatever your question happened to be are all coming 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:53.840 from sources that paid to be at the top of 0:23:53.880 --> 0:23:56.800 the heap, and you might even suspect that none of 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:01.399 those results will contain the best answer for your question, 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.960 or even worse that if you were to follow those results, 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:07.119 you would just kind of land on a page that 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:10.600 doesn't address what you were wondering at all. Instead, it's 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:13.200 just looking to convert you into a customer of some sort, 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:16.560 and instead you would have to scroll down past those 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:20.480 paid spots to find the actual results that didn't pay 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:23.080 to be there. They're just rising to the top because 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:26.960 of Google's page rank system. That's not a great user 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:30.080 experience if you feel like you constantly have to skip 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:33.639 the first few results in order to see things that 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:38.919 aren't tainted by the fact that people paid to be there. Plus, 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:42.000 there was this concern of Google scooping up so much 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:45.640 personal information in an effort to target ads more effectively 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:49.040