5 ms·
I don't think even the Freakonomics followup is valid because there's a huge difference between telling someone to run some searches and actual search engine us
by dangero 13y ago
I don't think even the Freakonomics followup is valid because there's a huge difference between telling someone to run some searches and actual search engine use.
Here's what I might type if someone asked me to try their search engine: "Miley Cyrus". The funny thing is that I'm not sure if I would like Google's "Miley Cyrus" results better than Bing's. I'm not sure I could tell the difference.
Here's the kind of stuff I actually need to work well during my normal day: "xcode 5 warning signature expiration does not match provisioning profile"
The second one isn't a real XCode warning, and that's kind of my point. I can't generate compiler warnings from my head to test Bing. I have to see them on my screen first spontaneously. This means if I'm running a Bing challenge I can't possibly simulate the real world unless I'm given my own machine and a few hours at my leisure to run into these types of things.
- VLM 13y agoThe most surprising thing is there might be any correlation between performance of top end search engines at such widely divergent areas of human experience, low quantity weird software errors and high quantity pointless hollywood blather. Certainly a junky demo search engine could be beaten all around by any top end search engine. But I'm surprised at the top end they are competitive in both areas. It would be like finding out olympic class weight lifters tend to also be olympic class marathon runners. Or the best commuter vehicle and best 100 ton mining truck happen to be the same vehicle.
- GFischer 13y agoI'm at work, and I wanted to try the challenge, but BingItOn redirects me to Bing. Maybe it's not available outside the U.S.? Bing's results are way less relevant to me than Google's, but Google does have the advantage of a lot more personal data, and a specific subdomain for my country (.uy) which often returns more relevant queries (OTOH for programming I often have to force the U.S. website). That's the reason I don't use DuckDuckGo either, the results are vastly inferior for my use case (even though I want to like it).
- mattwallaert 13y agoYou're correct, Bing It On is US only (although I believe there is also a Chinese version). As for Uruguay, we're always working to improve our international coverage - check back soon! (Note: I work for Bing.)
- GFischer 13y agoThanks matt :) Competition is a good thing, I really hope you can improve on Google's results. I do happily use a lot of other Microsoft products, so I know you'll give a good fight :)