It may not be perfect, But It’s Not Google… this is the Microsoft stand on the new search engine, named Bing… www.bing.com.  Check it out. I think you will enjoy the experience.

On June 1, Microsoft released a new search engine to compete with Google. Microsoft’s Bing search engine is marketed to be more than just a search engine, but a “decision engine”. Bing’s goal is to surface information you’re looking for faster than Google does by providing the most relevant information to the top of the listing that is returned from a search. How they determine the most relevant is the cause for debate with some.

Reports indicate that approximately 25% of searches are not satisfactory to the searcher. I can agree with this as I am not a big fan of getting 4 million hits based on my keywords and then having to search to find something relevant. Even after refining my keywords, I can still be buried in links to wade through. Information overload is a growing issue and is being addressed by more and more companies….remember the report we ran a few weeks ago on chacha.com?

Bing is initially designed to provide a much richer search experience for people looking for information in four categories: shopping, travel, health and local businesses. I used the engine the other day while performing the same search on Google and then on Bing. Bing presented categorized the information for me during my searches which I liked. For example, when searching on Home Depot with Bing, I get a category of Home Depot jobs and related links, then a category of Home Depot Coupons and related links and so on. The user experience is pleasing and the callouts for each link were nice. All I had to do was mouse over a link to get more information.

When searching on plane flights, I get specific links to specific deals on Bing. Bing also provided me with a forecast on what the most likely trend would be with the fare that I was searching which I found very helpful.

As you can imagine, some people like the engine and some people don’t. A bit of a surprise is that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is a fan. On the other end, people don’t like the “big brother” aspect of Microsoft bringing what they think is the most relevant information to the top of the listing… sort of a “Who is Microsoft to decide” this type of issue.

In another effort to drive searching, people can get cash back when they buy products from certain merchants that have a Bing symbol displayed next to their links. Click on shopping on the www.bing.com and see the cash back listings.

The world of search is still very new and all the engines are working to optimize your searching. If these new features with Bing turn out to be popular, then Google will most likely just incorporate them in to their engine. In either case, I am glad to see the focus on improving searching for information.

Do you do the ChaCha? It is fun and NOT a dance that your Mom did in the 50’s!!!

Ever want an answer to a question only to have your favorite search engine give you pages and pages of potential places to find the answer…..instead of just the answer!!! Well, ChaCha fixes this issue, by using a mix of technology and human experts to find you the answer you are seeking and send it to you via a text message.

ChaCha is a question answering service which uses a technique known as the Human search engine. This means that humans assist in the search to provide answers and not a long list of places to look for the answer. This is called “human-guided search”

The humans that help are called guides and come in four varieties….Expeditors, Generalists, Specialists and Transcribers.

Expeditors categorize questions, convert them into standard form, provide direct responses for certain question types, and also make sure that an answer doesn’t already exist for that question.

The Generalist, finds an answer to most of the questions using the internet, formats the answer into a text message, and formats the answer to give it a human quality….almost conversational…..they call this the “magic”.

Specialists are expert guides for those tough questions. They have all of the same purposes as a Generalist but they sign up for specific categories of questions based on their interest in and knowledge of those categories.

Transcribers listen to questions recorded by customers who call into 1-800-2ChaCha then convert the recorded message into text form so that Generalists and Specialists can answer them.

Expeditors receive $0.03 per question, and transcribers receive $0.04 to transcribe a message. Generalists and Specialists receive between $0.10 and $0.22 for each answer. A guide may work as little, or as much as they would like from the comfort of their homes. ChaCha tells potential guides that the average earnings are $3 to $9 per hour.

Try it…it is incredibly simple. The best part of ChaCha is how easy it is to use…..simply text a question to 242242 (chacha) or call 1-800-2ChaCha. All answers come via text to your phone and usually in a minute or two…..pretty quick. This is good as time is of the essence with a lot of questions. Questions submitted via text are limited to 4 in every 7 days. There is no limit to questions submitted via telephone.

Have fun with this….when you need an answer quickly don’t want to or can’t look it up….www.chacha.com is the answer.