Happy Belated Birthday, Bing!

Microsoft ’s Bing — a lookup engine thatliterally bribes peopleto practice it and still ( still ! ) ca n’t seem to grow its witheringly small4 percent market portion — has been around for an entire decade . As of yesterday . We leave its natal day and apparently so did nearly everyone else .

The relevance of Bing is such that all buttwonichetech blogs had posts prepared to commemorate 10 long time of the search railway locomotive owned and operated by one of the most valuable companies in the intact world . Why should it be otherwise : Bing was seen , not long after launching , as an aper , andaccusedof being a copycat instantaneously by marketplace leader Google .

What I did not agnise until mere moment ago , is how far Bing ’s homepage drifts from Google ’s well-nigh - all - white design . It ’s flamboyant , blind - dominating “ simulacrum of the Day ” and four boxes signal diachronic effect from this same day in history ( the first ever summiting of Mount Everest ! [ 1953 ] ) all scream “ WELCOME TO THE INTERNET . You ’re here ! Is n’t it exciting ! ” which pip a pitch of ebullience that felt appropriate for AOL 2.0 , but not for the societal metier panopticon we endure now instead .

Screenshot: bing

Did you know Bing aggregates news , too ? Not particularly well , though , and its headlines are seemingly compiled robotically , which results in sherd of nonsense often paired with mismatched images . “ Black couple faced gun ” show a photo of an old white dame ; “ Lose detention of kid ” would read as a freakish command if not for its propinquity to two the great unwashed ( celebrities ? ) I do not discern . These do not point to any specific article but instead to a search — on Bing of course — saving you perfectly no time catching up on world result .

“ Just as I say we receive challenger on personal computer , I ’m sure the food market loss leader on search would say they receive competition on search , ” then - chief operating officer Steve Ballmer said ( while refusing to even use the name ‘ Google ’ ) in aclipallegedly originating from 2009 , “ and we intend to provide some . ” But for god ’s sake look at this website . There ’s even a “ playfulness and games ” section with a 15 - clue crossword puzzle and a geographics quiz . Are people paid to make these ? Has anyone besides me ever get through on them ? Without a doubt , Google has an unhealthful dominance over search , but I ca n’t envisage a company of Microsoft ’s height still considers this a competitive product trying — one which , and I ca n’t accentuate this enough , they quite literally trying topay peopleto use .

Happy natal day , you dopey old affair . You ’ll probably still outlast me somehow .