5 ms·

Bing Says 25% of All Searches Are Voice Searches

16 points by riqbal 10y ago

jasonkostempski 10y ago
Im guessing its kids that dont know how to read/spell/type with iPads and parents that don't know how to change the default search engine. It would explain the word count per search increase too.
mhurron 10y ago
"No Cortana I did not want you to search for Pizza places, I wanted you to call Mum." It's still a voice search. /yes I'm a huge luddite with my phone and use only one voice command at the end of the day, but I still see the above as being a non-trivial amount of the searches.
Grue3 10y ago
And 25% of Internet Explorer usage is to download Firefox or Google Chrome.
chrshawkes 10y ago
Am I the only one surprised people actually use Bing at all?
croon 10y ago
Inb4 20% of those 25% are mistakenly activated voice searches.
herbst 10y ago
That definitely says a lot about the minimal search volume they have.
amelius 10y ago
And probably a large percentage of all searches are for physical items such as keys or wallets.
nck4222 10y ago
I can't help but think a lot of this are in the mold of "damnit, no, stop searching." - at least in my experience. Still this is a lot higher than I suspected.
- myhf 10y ago
  Xbox One Bing Trolling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvBwezmeW1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvBwezmeW1M
TillE 10y ago
> Before long, I would expect closer to 50% of all searches to be comprised of voice searches. I'd definitely want data from Google before making that kind of conclusion. More likely is that Bing isn't very popular, and so for a lot of people Cortana/Siri/Alexa is their only usage of Bing.
- INTPenis 10y ago
  My thoughts exactly. Bing isn't the go to search engine for a majority of people so the primary areas I can see it being used is on mobile devices where the option to open a new google search tab isn't as simple as on your desktop. Actually my first thought when I read the article was "25% of nothing is still nothing" ;) but maybe that was a bit harsh. Bing is after all being used by people who simply can't be bothered to change the default search engine.
- johannkaupen 10y ago
  I think that's the reason. Bing is not popular but gets used by a lot of IoT/personal assistant services and therefore the share should be higher than with Google. Curious about Baidu though. With some languages it's much easier to speak them than using your keyboard, so people adopt this feature sooner. Apart from that it would be interesting how search will increase if Messenger/Whatsapp would integrate that into their product. I feel like voice is used way more in messaging and some people only live in messengers anyway, so it could definitely help adoption.
- mcintyre1994 10y ago
  The majority of these are probably people trying to get Siri to answer something slightly challenging and getting thrown into a Bing search instead.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Kurtz79 10y ago
  What would be a reliable source of web searches market share ? A few (ironically, Google) searches yielded wildly different results, reporting anything from 3% to 20% as Bing's share. Regardless, even 1% would be a decent sample, I think, considering we are still talking about huge numbers, and people with iPhones or Android devices using Google as their main search would have similar usage patterns.
gjolund 10y ago
What proportion of that 25% actually returned correct results based on the users voice query? Even though my phone supports voice search I never use the feature. Not only do I not want to broadcast my search to the room/subway car, but also rather not have to type my search again after it fails to understand me.
gremy0 10y ago
So a third of users at least test Bing voice before searching for a different browser?

16 points by riqbal 10y ago

Im guessing its kids that dont know how to read/spell/type with iPads and parents that don't know how to change the default search engine. It would explain the word count per search increase too.

mhurron 10y ago

"No Cortana I did not want you to search for Pizza places, I wanted you to call Mum." It's still a voice search. /yes I'm a huge luddite with my phone and use only one voice command at the end of the day, but I still see the above as being a non-trivial amount of the searches.

Grue3 10y ago

And 25% of Internet Explorer usage is to download Firefox or Google Chrome.

chrshawkes 10y ago

Am I the only one surprised people actually use Bing at all?

croon 10y ago

Inb4 20% of those 25% are mistakenly activated voice searches.

herbst 10y ago

That definitely says a lot about the minimal search volume they have.

amelius 10y ago

And probably a large percentage of all searches are for physical items such as keys or wallets.

nck4222 10y ago

I can't help but think a lot of this are in the mold of "damnit, no, stop searching." - at least in my experience. Still this is a lot higher than I suspected.

myhf 10y ago
Xbox One Bing Trolling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvBwezmeW1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvBwezmeW1M

TillE 10y ago

> Before long, I would expect closer to 50% of all searches to be comprised of voice searches. I'd definitely want data from Google before making that kind of conclusion. More likely is that Bing isn't very popular, and so for a lot of people Cortana/Siri/Alexa is their only usage of Bing.

INTPenis 10y ago
My thoughts exactly. Bing isn't the go to search engine for a majority of people so the primary areas I can see it being used is on mobile devices where the option to open a new google search tab isn't as simple as on your desktop. Actually my first thought when I read the article was "25% of nothing is still nothing" ;) but maybe that was a bit harsh. Bing is after all being used by people who simply can't be bothered to change the default search engine.
johannkaupen 10y ago
I think that's the reason. Bing is not popular but gets used by a lot of IoT/personal assistant services and therefore the share should be higher than with Google. Curious about Baidu though. With some languages it's much easier to speak them than using your keyboard, so people adopt this feature sooner. Apart from that it would be interesting how search will increase if Messenger/Whatsapp would integrate that into their product. I feel like voice is used way more in messaging and some people only live in messengers anyway, so it could definitely help adoption.
mcintyre1994 10y ago
The majority of these are probably people trying to get Siri to answer something slightly challenging and getting thrown into a Bing search instead.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Kurtz79 10y ago
What would be a reliable source of web searches market share ? A few (ironically, Google) searches yielded wildly different results, reporting anything from 3% to 20% as Bing's share. Regardless, even 1% would be a decent sample, I think, considering we are still talking about huge numbers, and people with iPhones or Android devices using Google as their main search would have similar usage patterns.

gjolund 10y ago

What proportion of that 25% actually returned correct results based on the users voice query? Even though my phone supports voice search I never use the feature. Not only do I not want to broadcast my search to the room/subway car, but also rather not have to type my search again after it fails to understand me.

gremy0 10y ago

So a third of users at least test Bing voice before searching for a different browser?