by Babita Ram
Following the
launch of Microsoft's new search engine, oops 'decision engine'
Bing.com, We got in touch with some of the key people of the Indian online industry to know their first impressions about the new service. Looks like Bing.com has already impressed many, if not all.
Deep Kalra, founder and CEO, MakeMyTrip.com, said, "I am impressed. Good quality results both for business and news. The preview feature (on the right) is impressive and I also liked the filters and features on images. Success will depend on quality of results."
When asked if MakeMyTrip will add Bing to its media plan, Deep Kalra said that the company would be watching Bing carefully and would like to experiment with it.
Vivek Bhargava, managing director, Communicate2, said, "Bingo! The interface is refreshing. Features like running videos from the result pages itself are fantastic. In India we are unable to see the full power of Bing shopping and travel -- however the demo of these services is surely impressive. The positioning is impressive too -- decision engine."
"Having said that, I don't think we are ready to switch from the other search engine though I think Microsoft has got the direction right," added Bhargava.
Hitesh Oberoi, COO and director, Info Edge India (Naukri.com), said, "At first glance the Bing user experience is refreshing. It is fast, good looking, clutter free and comes with smart features like dynamic clusters on the Left Hand Side panel. The video play on mouseover feature is also useful. There is also a better integration of news results which seem to be frequently updated."
"This seems to be a serious attempt by Microsoft to challenge Google's dominance in search. Finally with Yahoo Glue and Microsoft Bing the search market is set to become a little more competitive for sure," added Oberoi.
Commenting on Info Edge's plans to advertise on Bing, Hitesh Oberoi said, "We have been advertising on MSN and Live Search and will continue to advertise on Bing as well for sure."
Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO, Consim Info (BharatMatrimony.com), said, "The on-mouseover on the search results which displays the latest or first few lines of content from the web page as a preview of the site's content is impressive. Related search items on the left side are also quite useful."
"Besides, different viewing options to zoom in or out on images in the image search and the various filters available in the image search are nice features. In video searches, the filters and display options work even better," Janakiraman added. According to him, the user interface and overall user experience is impressive and the product is a good deviant from the standard, boring search engine interfaces.
But as we mentioned in the intro, not all are as impressed with Microsoft's latest offering. "I spent around an hour searching on Bing and my first feeling as a customer is that I did not like the look and feel, the style and the colour of the product,"
L D Sharma, managing director, Shoogloo Online Marketing, said.
"Search engines are known to be simpler and simpler. Also, I have been shown some good things about Bing.com and some not so good results. However, this is totally my personal feeling as a search engine marketer for the last five years," L D Sharma added.
