Searching to destroy ... Bing? Facebook JILTS Microsoft

Facebook has killed a search deal it had in place with Microsoft's Bing. The move is unsurprising. In fact, your correspondent noted in early 2013 that the Mark Zuckerberg-run company was clearly shifting away from its dependence on the software giant when he unveiled Facebook's Graph Search product. At the time, we asked …

[BongoJoe]

Does this article...

...really need a picture of an interrupted bonking duo sized about A5 on the screen?

Yes, we all do understand the pithy wit of El Reg but do these pictures which have little to do with the article have to be so bloody big?

For kerrist's sake, find the plot once again will you?

[Craig 2]

Re: Does this article...

It's the brave new world! More whitespace, more pictures, less information. I know everything has to be tablet-centric these days, but surely a lot of readers browse The Register as I do: At work on a PC, when I should be doing something more productive!

[wolfetone]

Re: Does this article...

The only time an image that large should be on my screen is when I'm using Private Browsing and looking for a bride from Thailand.

[pepper]

Re: Does this article...

Yep, the images are too big on the site, doesnt make any sense at all. Especially for a context less purpose as in a article like this.

[Warm Braw]

Re: Does this article...

I think they're hoping for an offer from Dice Holdings...

[Doogs]

Re: Does this article...

Just replace www in the url with an m and... presto! stupid ginormous image be gone!

[pepper]

Re: Does this article...

What do you mean Warm? I thought Slashdo.... Oooooooh.

[DarrDarr]

Well, Bing is a horrible search engine... it can't even index and find stuff on microsoft.com, the site of its owner!

Try it yourself... go to a page on their support site, say, support.microsoft.com/kb/2509997

swipe across the title of the page to select the first 7 words, in this case

"Unable to install updates in Windows Vista"

(so you can see it's a rather old page, not something they haven't had TIME to crawl and index)... copy and paste that phrase into the search bar (provided by Bing) at the top of the page there.

That support.microsoft.com page won't show up at all on the first page of bing results.

Now go to google.com and paste that same string into the search bar and click the button. Guess what site turns up as the top result?

[John Lilburne]

You seem to have an older version of the internet.

[John Brown (no body)]

"You seem to have an older version of the internet."

Would like ti install updates now? yes/no

<y>

There are 4,396,762 important updates and 3 optional updates and one non-optional life dependant update to TheRegister.css. Proceed? yes/no

[Graham 24]

Well, when I use Bing to search for that phrase, the page you mention is right at the top - first link.

You must be clicking the search button incorrectly.

More seriously, the problem is that Microsoft can't win. There will be lots of pages with that phrase on them (Google claims 8,500 results, Bing 30,000). If Microsoft don't put their own pages first, someone like you says "Bing is rubbish - they don't even index their own site". If they do put it first, someone else says "Bing is rubbish - they always favour their own site above the rest of the internet".

[Blottomania]

@DarrDarr -- Ok, I tried your silly experiment, but I did an apples to apples comparison and went to bing.com (as bing.com is really what's involved here). And lo and behold, it's the very first search result. So much for your brilliant analysis. Proof?

http://s3.postimg.org/42mzgl8cz/Microsoft.jpg

Care to try again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple really. We (techies/geeks) are not the users Bing is searching for.

[Anonymous Coward]

What we've got here is...

Poisoned search results...

[Robert E A Harvey]

Err..

I had no idea that Facebook could or did display search results, so I don't suppose it matters very much.

[Anonymous Coward]

'fledgling behavioural network'

Nice, very nice :)

Also please roll back this graphical update :(

Sometimes, change very bad!

[Anonymous Coward]

The last time i looked there were 10 pages of comments

On your New Paint Job and the MAJORITY want you to roll back this update.......are you going to listen and change back or are you just waiting for us to get tired of complaining.....like i'm doing now?

:( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( < This is what all us unhappy readers of The Register have looked like since Thursday!

[Captain DaFt]

Re: The last time i looked there were 10 pages of comments

Ah, but you're not looking at it from a marketeer's angle! (Lucky you!)

Ten pages of comments? Who cares if they hate it, they're interacting with our new interface! Page hits up! More eyeballs to sell to advertisers! Success!

Now, if nobody'd posted a word about it, and hits on the site dropped off like an elephant's arse, the new look would've been history within 12 hours or less.

[John Sanders]

What's up with the oversized images?

Reduce the size of the images to half of what they are now!!!!!

For god's sake we do not come to "el Reg" to look at nice pictures!

[Uncle Ron]

Thank You

I would drop -everything- Microsoft, if I could. If I only could.

[Hans 1]

Re: Thank You

Yes, you can!™

Just do it!™

[zen1]

It's all in product branding...

Let's face it, Bing is not a good word to use when a process becomes so ubiquitous that it's name can be interchanged as a verb. Had they been smart, they would have used something like wank or caress, as in wanking or caressing the answers out of the cloud. Had they made something with a catchy name, and something with a bit of a blue flavor to it (we all know that sex sells, especially to us geeky types), things might have been a little different and people might have overlooked it's inferiority to Google. But no, they chose Bing. Bing is not only a horrible product but the name conjures up images either an injury or some horrible syndrome.

That being said, as I've stated before, MS should simply focus on its core product offerings and not waste monies trying to compete against google.

[Alan Denman]

Two incompatibles really

Microsoft are still an OS company and part of that strategy means walled garden.

Open internet competition is a heck of a problem for them as it undermines dependence.

Those real internet,real cross platform, based companies, Twitter, Spotify, Facebook, Google youtube etc are certainly classed the enemy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Two incompatibles really

Spot on - and that is one reason why IE6 was deliberately designed to perform so appallingly - to slow down using the Internet as much as possible while proprietising it in Microsoft's direction.

[Sarah Balfour]

Oooh, I say…

Bing, BONG! <said in your best Leslie Phillips voice>

[Spotswood]

Last line should have read

Any soul-searching.............. appears to have returned no results...