I awoke on Friday to read this headline on my phone:

“What are bloggers saying about Microsoft’s Bing?”

This left me dumbfounded. What is Bing? As I write on personal finance and micropreneurship, anything that surrounds starting something new or spending to develop something new interests me. A quick search on Google helped me find the answer…

Microsoft wants the internet back!

When I was back in high school, Microsoft was comfortably in control of a number of things. Legitimate software was everywhere, Internet Explorer was the main way to surf the internet and Yahoo and MSN were the way to search for things. Fast forward eight years and the world has changed… Microsoft finds itself an old player in a new game where:

1. People download free software or pirate rather than buying.
2. Google is the leader on the internet.
3. More and more people are moving away from Internet Explorer.
4. Individuals do not want to use all their computer’s RAM upgrading to Windows.
5. Email is moving away from MS Office and Live (aka Hotmail) to Gmail and others.

To stay a leader, get into every market.

Microsoft is trying to regain some traction with its new search product, Bing ^[1]. Bing, it appears, is designed to be a more appealing option than Google for individuals wanting to use search when looking for ‘real’ sites.

This is not the first time we’ve seen Microsoft do something like this. The Xbox launched as the best gaming console, only to lose market share with the Xbox 360. I know that Microsoft is now offering free downgrades to purchases of windows Vista to revert back to Windows XP. I know since moving to Gmail, I dread having to open my old Hotmail account.

For many, recent Microsoft releases have been big hype, ending up a bit of a let down… but is Bing any different?

Why haven’t I heard of this before?

As an avid reader and writer in the blogsphere, I’m a bit surprised I hadn’t heard of this before. This could be for one of a few possible reasons:

1. Bloggers aren’t looking forward to it. Do new Microsoft products still really excite you? If they don’t, then you wouldn’t feel inclined to write about them (and a number of leading bloggers are avid Mac users).
2. Lack of awareness. Have you heard of Bing before? Apparently it starts on the 1st June, but I wouldn’t have known.
3. Mind position. Google is now a verb. With Google having the mind position in the western world, why would you suddenly want to change from what you know works to be able to ‘Bing’ something?

The question really is then… would you use Bing? Although I might try it and see what potential it has, my gut feeling is that I will be sticking with Google for a long time to come.

Joshua Moore is the author of Moore Thought, a blog dedicated to helping providing information, knowledge, tips and insights surrounding personal finance and entrepreneurship (www.moorethought.com).