First off, Bing is basically a photocopy of Google with a couple different features. If you put the two side by side you won't get significantly different searc

First off, Bing is basically a photocopy of Google with a couple different features. If you put the two side by side you won't get significantly different search results. The only real difference is layout. (video thumbnails, etc) So that being said if Microsoft has a product that is more or less equal at this point they obviously need to advertise it to gain marketshare. Is anyone actually unhappy with Google search? No, not really. So Microsoft's only hope is to at least get a large number of people to try it -- even if they only try it once or twice. There's more opportunity for growth there than simply trying to wait for people to become dissatisfied with Google and search out alternatives on their own. Very few (if any) Microsoft products have experienced real organic grass roots growth. They've always been forced into the market Top Hat style. Since they don't have any real monopoly to tie Bing into they obviously have to try a different method here. They tried with both MSN and Live to leverage IE for more marketshare and it didn't work. You can't really blame them for trying something different. When you're dealing with a mainstream consumer oriented technology advertising is very important.